9^ 



ieLivt«fo 



OCT 4 1898 



I 



SHORT STUDIES 

IN 

LiTERATTJEE. 

FOR 

The use of Schools. 

' BY 

ALBEET P. SOUTHWICK, A.M., 

AUTHOR OF THE DIME SERIES OF QUESTION-BOOKS. 

REVISED EDITION, 




PHILADELPHIA: 

Eldredge & Brother, 

No. 17 North Seventh Street. 
1898. 




icCtlVEO. 

15123 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by 

ELDKEDGE & BROTHER, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Revised Edition, Copyright, 1898. 



2nct COP 
1898. 



J. FAGAN & SON, 
, ELECTROTYPERS, PHILAD'A. ^ 




TT has long been a recognized fact that a knowledge 
of literature is necessary to the liberal cultivation 
of the mind. But an elementary course must first be 
used to subserve this end, and, as an auxiliary t4 such 
progress, these Short Studies have been prepared by 
the writer, whose intent has been to exercise accuracy 
of statement and thoroughness of detail, with such 
divisions of literary eras as are essential to a proper 
understanding of those periods representing the growth 
of our language and literature. 

Brevity is not only the soul of wit, but also the great 
desideratum of a text-book for our schools at present, 
and the reticence of criticism, — that given, being a fair 
abstract of the current general opinion of authors, — 
the absence of historical references, and the use of the 
short, pointed sentences, are wholly intentional, as are 
the apparent omissions of other details naturally asso- 
ciated with the context. 

iii 



iv 



PREFACE. 



Similar to works of a like nature, this is a compi- 
lation, and the writer cordially and freely acknowl- 
edges his indebtedness to every work upon the subject 
heretofore published, and takes this opportunity of ex- 
pressing his thanks to Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 
and other publishers, for their kind permission to make 
extracts from their copyright editions of leading Amer- 
ican authors. 

That the work may serve its purpose of leading the 
student to glean from the harvest-fields of literary work- 
manship, and thus to increase his knowledge ; of filling 
his daily life with golden thoughts, and thus materially 
to enhance his sphere of usefulness, is the fervent wish 
of the compiler. 

A. P. S. 



Suggestions to Teachers. 



ASIDE from its special use as a text-book, this little work 
will, it is hoped, be found of benefit when used supple- 
mentary to the Eeader. The pupil, at times, should be required 
to give memoriter recitations, and again written abstracts of the 
lives and labors of the authors mentioned. The queries will occa- 
sion the necessity of a recitation jper se, and the unanswered 
questions, or those whose answers can not be obtained from the 
text, will require study on the part of the pupil, aided by ref- 
erence and information from the instructor. Many of the selec- 
tions given under the respective authors will be found to be 
gems for memorizing additionally to those of the "Pearls," 
which represent both the best thoughts and individual style of 
the writer. 

Particularize as much as possible ; dwell on an epoch of 
literature, or even on the works of an autlior, until thoroughly 
understood. The age to which an author belongs is essential ; 
the especial dates of his birth and death are not absolutely 
necessary. 

Quotations serve as a preliminary incentive to the apprecia- 
tion of literary culture, and the ultimate mastery of the most 
delightful of studies. A felicitous use of verbal expression is 
one of the results of careful instruction in combining the use 
of the text with the ordinary language lessons. 

1 * v 




PAGE 

Introduction 9 

Part I.— English Literature. 

Period I.— The Age of Chaucer . . .12 

Eepresentative — Chaucer 12 

Contemporaries 12 

Later Writers 13 

Scotch Poets 14 

Period 11. — The Elizabethan Age . . .15 
Kepresentatives — Spenser, Shakespeare, Ba- 
con, JONSON 15-18 

Other Writers of this Age . . . .19 

Period III.— The Age of Milton . . .21 

Eepresentative — Milton 21 

Contemporaries 22 

Period IY.— The Age of Dryden . . .25 
Eepresentatives — Dryden, Butler . . 25, 26 
Other Writers 27 

Period Y.— The Age of Addison and Pope . 29 
Eepresentatives — Addison, Pope, Swift . 29-31 

Poets of this Age 31 

Prose Writers 33 



vi 



CONTENTS, 



vii 



PAGE 

Period YI.— The Age of Johnson . . .34 
Kephesentatives — Johnson, Goldsmith, Gray, 

CowPER, Burns 34-37 

Contemporaries — Poets 38 

Historians, Novelists, Other Writers . . 39 

Period YII.— The Georgian Age . . .41 
Eepresentatives — Byron, Moore, Shelley, 
Keats, "Lake Poets," Scott, Hood, Campbell, 

Knowles 41-49 

Other Poets of this Age 49 

Writers of Fiction 52 

Historians, Miscellaneous Writers . . 53, 54 

Period YIIL—The Yictorian Age . . .56 
Eepresentatives — (Poets), Tennyson, Browning, 
Mrs. Browning, Jean Ingelow, Swinburne, 

Morris, Clough 56-60 

(Prose Writers), Macaulay, Carlyle, Bulwer- 
Lytton, Thackeray, Dickens, ''George El- 
iot," EusKiN, Darwin 60-67 

Miscellaneous Writers of this Age . . .67 

Part II American Literature. 

Introduction 74 

Period I.— The Colonial Age . . . .74 

Eepresentatives — Smith, Cotton, Williams, 
Mather, Mrs. Bradstreet . . . 75, 77 

Contemporaries 77 

Period II.— The Revolutionary Age . . 78 
Representatives — Franklin, Otis, Jefferson 78, 79 

Contemporaries , 80 

Poets of this Age 81 

Other Writers . . . , . . ,83 



viii 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 

Period III.— The National Age . . .84 
Kepresentatiyes — (Poets), Drake, Hoffman, 
Halleck, Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, 
Holmes, Lowell, Foe, Willis, Payne . 85-94 

Other Poets of this Age 95 

(Prose Writers), Irving, Cooper, Hawthorne, 
Emerson, Holland, Saxe, H. B. Stowe, Ban- 
croft, Prescott, Motley .... 97-104 
Contemporaries 104 

Period IY.— The Golden Age . . . .108 
Kepresentatiyes — Bead, Alice and Phcebe 
Cary, Taylor, Aldrich, Stedman, Harte, 
Miller, Carleton, Hay, Hayne, Howells, 

Clemens, Burdette 109-119 

Miscellaneous Writers of this Age . . .120 

Part III. 

Pearls at Random Strung 126 

Familiar Quotations 160 

Part IV. 

Becreations 165 

Pseudonyms 178 

Index . . .182 




Short Studies 



IN 

Literature. 

Introduction. 

THE earliest name in the list of Anglo-Saxon writers is 
that of Gil das, generally described as a missionary of 
British parentage, living in the first half of the sixth cen- 
tury, and the author of a Latin tract on early British his- 
tory. 

Nennius, a contemporary, whose name, after having been 
long connected with a small historical work written like 
that of Gildas in Latin, has latterly been pronounced to be 
a mythical personage. The first unquestionably real author 
of distinction is St. Columbanus, a native of Ireland, who 
wrote religious treatises and Latin poetry. A man of vigor- 
ous ability, he contributed greatly to the advancement of 
Christianity in various parts of Europe . The Lay of Beowulf, 
a grand epic poem, brought over by the "Englisc folc," is 
best known through the medium of Kemble's translation. 

The first Anglo-Saxon writer of note, who composed in 
his own language, and of whom there are any remains, is 
Caedmon, a monk of Whitby, who died about 680. Caed- 
mon, who at one time acted in the capacity of a cow-herd, 
was a genius of the class headed by Burns, a poet of nature's 

9 



10 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



making, sprung from the bosom of the common people, and 
Uttle indebted to education. 

Phillipe de Thaun, Thorold, Samson de Nanteuil, Geoffroi 
Gaimar, David, Wace, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, were 
Norman poets of England. 

Many of the writings of these early days are collections 
from various authors, whose names have long since been 
lost, and one of the most remarkable is, perhaps, the Gesta 
Romanorum, the great source of inspiration of poets of 
later days. The story of the caskets, pound of flesh, and 
evasion of payment, in the Merchant of Venice, are found 
in the Gesta; also the spectre-legend of Scott's Marmion, 
V the story of The Three Black Crows, and other well-known 



The writer has given the ordinary groupings, currently 
accepted, of literary epochs illustrating the varying con- 
ditions, political, social, and intellectual, that mark the 
characteristics of the people of a certain era, and in the 
history of English letters and literature there are eight 
such periods, classified as follows : 



I. — The Age of Chaucer. 
II. — The Elizabethan Age. 

III. — The Age of Milton. 

IV. — The Age of Dryden. 

V. — The Age of Addison and Pope. 
VI. — The Age of Johnson. 
VII. — The Georgian Age. 
VIIL— The Victorian Age. 



jests. 




Part I. 

English Literature. 

THE works produced in England from 450 to 1050 were in 
Anglo-Saxon, now a dead language; Semi-Saxon, from 
1050 to 1250 ; Old English, from 1250 to 1350 ; Middle English, 
from 1350 to 1550 ; and Modern English, from 1550 to the 
present day. The first three divisions have quite a volumi- 
nous literature, but regarding the year 1200 as the dividing 
line between the old language and the new, the first work 
of literary pretension is the Brut of Layamon. 

The Brutus of England is a chronicle of British affairs 
from the arrival of Brutus to the death of King Cadwalader, 
A. D. 689. This legend was to the effect that Brutus, an 
imaginary son of ^neas of Troy, settled in Britain, as did 
his father in Italy, and from him sprang a line of British 
monarchs. 

The Brut was followed by The Ormulum, a metrical para- 
phrase of Scripture, written by Orm, or Ormin, possibly 
about the year 1220. 

" (Thiss boc iss nemmned Orrmulum, 
Forthi thatt Orrm itt wrohhte.") 

Following these are the Ancren Riwle (Anchoresses^ 
Rule), a treatise on the duties of the monastic life ; the 
Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (1300?), a history in 
verse of Britain from Brutus of Troy to the death of Henry 

11 



12 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



III., 1272; the rhyming Chronicle of Eobert of Brunne^ 
(1338), which treats of English history from Brutus to the 
death of Edward L, 1307 ; and many anonymous metrical 
romances, but English literature distinctively commences 
with 

The age of Chaucer. 

1350—1525. 

Geoffrey Chaucer (13281-1400), f/ieir2com/)ara6?^, known 
as the "Father of English Poetry," was the only great 
author that England produced previous to the middle of 
the sixteenth century. His great work, the Canterbury 
Tales, which is an admirable collection of daguerrotypes 
of the various classes of English society, is the narratives 
of nine and twenty pilgrims beside the poet, bound on a 
pilgrimage to the tomb of Thomas a Becket, at Canterbury. 

Selections : 

" But when yon moten list to ryden anywhere, 
Ye moten trille a pin. srant in his ere, 
Which I shall tell you betwix ns two." — Squires Tale, 

"It am I 

That loveth so hot Emilie the bright 
That I would die present in her sight." 

Other writings of Chaucer are the Ronmunt of the Rose, 
Court of Love, Chaucer^s Bream, Legend of Good Women, 
The Complaint of Mars and Venus, Troilus and Creseide, etc. 

Contemporaries. 

Sir John Mandeville (1300-1372), "The Bruce of the 
fourteenth centur}-," who, leaving home at the age of twenty- 

* Robert Manning. 

t Speglit's conjecture (writing in 1597), coupling the date (1340) on the 
tombstone with Leland's assertion that he lived to the period of gray 
hairs. 



EmilSH LITERATURE. 



13 



seven, travelled for several years in Syria and Eastern Asia, 
and wrote upon his return a Booh of Voyage and Travel, 
first in Latin, then in French, and finally in English. 

John Gower (1320?-1408), the intimate of Chaucer, 
was the author of three great works ; Speculum Meditantis, 
in Norman French ; Vox Clamantis, in Latin : and Confessio 
Amantls, in English ; the Specidum Meditantis is lost. 

William Langland (1332-1400), the probable author of 
Piers Plowman, a work of great celebrity and value. 

John Wycliffe (1324-1384), ''The Morning Star of the Ref- 
ormation,^^ sometimes styled the " Father of English Prose," 
wrote many treatises, and A Translation of the Holy Bible. 

Later Writers. 

William Caxton (1412-1491), the venerable father of 
English printing, first set in type (at Ghent) The Recuyell 
of the Historie of Troye, and, in 1474, produced The Game of 
Chess, which was the first book printed in Britain. 

Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), the leading prose writer 
of this time, wrote juvenile poetry, the first pointed epigram, 
and was the author of A History of Edward V., and of his 
Brother, and of Richard III.; Utopia, a philosophical romance 
(written in Latin), and many other works. He was be- 
headed by order of Henry YIIL 

John Skelton (1460-1529), whose writings are an abun- 
dant source of popular English, was the first Poet-Laureate, 
and the author of Colin Clout, Why Come Ye not to Court, The 
Tunning of Elinour Rummy ng, etc. 

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542), the writer of poems, 
satirical and amatory. 

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516-1547), was the 
first writer of blank verse in English, and, like More, suf- 
fered death ^'on the block." 

Tyndale (1480-1536), and Coverdale (1487-1568), to- 
2 



14 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



gether gave to the world the whole of the sacred writings 
in an English version. The former was burnt at the stake 
by order of Henry VIII. 

Scotch Poets. 

For a century and a half from the time of Chaucer, the 
poetical writers of any note were Scotchmen. Of these 
minstrels and poets the first two properly belong to the age 
of Chaucer. 

John Barbour (1320 ?-1395), the greatest of them all, 
wrote two lengthy poems, The Brute, a metrical romance, 
giving the lineage of the Scottish kings back to Brutus of 
Troy, and The Bruce, a chronicle of the warlike deeds of 
Eobert Bruce, the latter written soon after the death of the 
Scottish hero. 

James I. of Scotland (1394-1437), while living in 
Windsor Castle a prisoner of state, wrote a collection of 
love verses, under the title of the King^s Quhair (i. e., 
Quire or Book). 

Henry the Minstrel, or Blind Harry, wrote a poem 
called Sir William Wallace, in twelve books, about the 
year 1470. 

Robert Henry son (1425-1506), a schoolmaster at Dun- 
fermline, wrote Tlie Testament of Fair Creseide, a sequel to 
Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide ; Robin and Makyne (in 
Percy^s Eeliques), and a translation of jEsop's Fables. 

William Dunbar (1465-1520), called by Prof. Craik 
"The Chaucer of Scotland," was master of almost every 
.kind of verse. Author of The Dance of the Seven Deadly 
Sins, The Thistle and the Rose, Twa Married Women and the 
Widoiv, The Souter (shoemaker) and the Tailor, etc. 

Queries. ••■ — Who wrote three works, respectively, in French, Latin, 
and English? Whom did Chaucer call " Moral Gower " ? Who 
is the " Father of English Prose " ? When did English prose liter- 



* To encourage the habit of investigation by pupils, some questions are 
given which will require reference to other books. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



15 



ature begin? Arts. With Sir John Mandeville. Who has been 
called the " Chaucer of Scotland " ? What is the plan of the Can- 
terbury Tales ? Who wrote an account of his travels during many- 
years ? Where did the royal poet write his love verses ? To whom 
were they addressed ? Ans. To Lady Joanna Beaufort, who after- 
wards became his wife. What work was written first in Latin, then 
in French, and finally in English ? Who translated ^sop's Fables ? 
Who is the author of Brutf of Ancren Riwle? of The Legend 
of Good Women? of The Confessions of a Lover (Confessio 
Amantis) ? of Philip Sparrow ? Who first translated into English 
verse any ancient classic, Greek or Latin ? Atis. Gawin Douglass 
(1475-1522). Can you tell the story and end of Beowulf? In 
how many forms does literature exist ? What is meant by the 
literature of a country? Why did French literature influence 
English poetry and not its prose? What writers were beheaded? 
What was Chaucer^s definition of a gentleman ? Have you read 
the Song of Brunanburth ? What was the history of Aldhelm ? 

The Elizabethan Age. 

1525-1625. 

The most glorious era of English literature. It is re- 
nowned for its three writers — Spenser, Shakespeare,"^ and 
Bacon— either of whom would have made an age illustri- 
ous. This golden or Augustan age is a brilliant opening 
after the period of poverty and feebleness unvivified by 
genius that had continued since the time of Chaucer. 
Second on the roll of great English poets is the name of 
Edmund Spenser. 

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599), the man of pure char- 
acter, elegant culture, and rare genius. Eeceiving from 
Elizabeth a grant of three thousand acres in Ireland, he 
passed several years in the Emerald Isle, but upon the 
breaking out of the insurrection in 1598, his mansion (Kil- 
colman Castle) was plundered and set on fire, and, escaping 
with his wife to London, he died after a few months of 
painful anxiety, at the age of forty-five. His principal 



* Most Shakespearian scholars now spell the name Shakspere. 



16 SHORT STUDIES IN LITmATURE, 



work, The Faerie Queene, is a series of connected adven- 
tures, intended to illustrate the excellence of holiness, 
temperance, chastity, justice, courtesy, and friendship, 
under the guise of knights. He wrote only six books of 
the contemplated twelve. 

His other works are The Tears of the Muses, VirgiVs Gnat, 
Mother Hubbard's Tale, The Ruins of Rome, Muiopotmos ; 
or, The Fate of the Butterfly, Colin Clout ^s Come Home Again, 
etc., " Colin Clout" is the poet himself. 

Selections : 

Fear not, to have been dipp'd in Lethe' lake 
Could save the son of Thetis from to die.*' 

Ruines of Time. 

" A gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine, 
Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde, 
Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine, 
The cruel markes of many a bloody fielde ; 
Yet armes till that time did he never yield." 

Faerie Queene. 

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), ''the myriad- 
minded," the Prince of Poets, the beauty, grandeur, sub- 
limity, wit, humor, and pathos of whose writings have 
given him the rank of the greatest dramatic genius and 
poet of the world, was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, in 
April, 1564. He received no better education than the 
grammar-school of the place afforded. When eighteen 
years of age, Anne Hathaway, the maid of Shottery, al- 
though eight years his senior, won his heart and was mar- 
ried to him. At the age of twenty he went to London, 
where he became successively an actor, a dramatist, and 
theatrical manager, and, after attaining to fame and for- 
tune, retired to Stratford in 1611, dying on his fifty-second 
birthday. 

His dramas, thirty -seven in number, are by general con- 
sent admitted to be the greatest classic and literary treas- 
ure of the world. Shakespeare is a treasury of thought 
and knowledge which it requires no keys of literary schol- 
arship to unlock. Of Shakespeare's thirty-five plays, "four- 
teen are comedies, eleven tragedies, and ten histories." 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



17 



The Two Noble Kinsmen is now generally conceded to be 
the joint workmanship of Shakespeare and John Fletcher. 
Venus and Adonis, "the first heir of his invention," was 
published in 1593. 

Selections : 

'* The man that hath no music in himself, 
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, 
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils : 
The motions of his spirit are dull as night. 
And his affections dark as Erebus, 
Let no such man be trusted." — Merchant of Venice. 

"Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows." 

The Tempest. 

*' And the imperial vot'ress passed on 
In maiden meditation, fancy free." 

Midsummer- Night' s Dream, 

" Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
"Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous. 
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head ; 
And this our life, exempt from public haunt. 
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

As You Like It. 

** Then must you speak of one that lov'd not wisely, but 
too well.'' — Othello. 

"Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops." 

Romeo and Juliet. 

" The big round tears 
Cours'd one another down his innocent nose 
In piteous chase." — As You Like It. 

Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), known as Lord Bacon, 
the Prince of Philosophers, is especially honored as ^' the 
father of inductive philosophy." He exhibited in the dis- 
charge of his duties as Lord High Chancellor great wisdom 
and eloquence, but his whole career was characterized by 
acts of the basest servility and corruption. 

The House of Commons ordering an investigation into 
various acts of bribery of which he was accused, he was 
2* B 



18 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



tried before the House of Lords and convicted. Deprived 
of his office, and condemned to pay a fine of £40,000 (the 
latter remitted by royal favor), he passed the remaining 
five years of his life in intriguing and imploring pecuniary 
relief from his distresses. His principal work is the Novum 
Organum, the second part of the Instauratio Magna, a work 
to consist of six books, three of which alone were finished, 
a brief portion only having been completed of the fourth. 
His Essays are the most popular. 

Selections : 

" Knowledge is power." 
A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but 
depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion." * 

" Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and 
some few to be chewed and digested. That is, some books are 
to be read only in parts ; others, to be read, but not curiously ; 
and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and atten- 
tion. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts 

made of them by others Reading maketh a full man ; 

conference, a ready man ; and writing, an exact man. And 
therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory ; 
if he confer little, he had need have a present wit ; and if he 
reads little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that 
he doth not. Histories make men wise ; poets, witty ; the mathe- 
matics, subtle ; natural philosophy, deep ; moral, grave ; logic 
and rhetoric, able to contend." — Essays. 

" The first distemper of learning is when men study words 
and not matter." 

Ben Jonson (1574-1637). This celebrated dramatist, 
the friend of Shakespeare, and second to him only, was the 
author of Catiline and Sejanus, tragedies ; Every Man in his 
Humor, The Alchemist, and Volpone, or the Fox, comedies; 
and many other plays, minor poems, and prose-writings, 
all marked by rare grace of expression. On his tombstone 
are the words, " rare Ben Jonson ! " 

Selection : 

" Give me a look, give me a face, 
That makes simplicity a grace ; 



*Compare this with Pope's "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



19 



Robes loosely flowing, hair as free, 
Such sweet neglect more taketh me 
Than all th' adulteries of art : 
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart." 

Other Writers of this Age. 

George Gascoigne (1535-1577) wrote the first English 
comedy in prose. 

Michael Drayton (1563-1631), the author of many 
poems, including NympJiidea, his best work. 

Selection from Polyolbion : 

" In this our spacious isle I think there is not one 
But he hath heard some talk of Hood and Little John ; 
Of Tuck the merry friar, which many a sermon made 
In praise of Rohin Hood, his outlaws, and their trade." 

Robert Southwell (1560-1595), the Jesuit poet, who 
died a martyr to his religion, was the author of Magdalene^ s 
Tears, Content and Rich, etc. 

Samuel Daniel (1562-1619), 'Svell-languaged Daniel," 
wrote a History of the Wars of the Roses. 

Thomas Sackville (1536-1608), Earl of Dorset, the 
writer of a part of A Mirrour for Magistrates, a poem that 
was afterwards continued by other writers in the same 
style. It was for the Earl's children that Roger Ascham 
(1515-1568), the tutor of Princess (Queen) Elizabeth and 
the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey, wrote The Schoolmaster. 

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) wrote several plays 
in excellent blank verse: Tamhurlaine the Great, Life and 
Death of Dr. Faustus (founded upon the same popular 
legend which Goethe adopted as the groundwork of his 
tragedy), The Jeiv of Malta, and Edward III. 

Francis Beaumont (1585-1616), and John Fletcher 
(1579-1625), who were more popular than Shakespeare in 
their day, wrote fifty-two tragedies and comedies, and 

worked together with so intimate a union that it is im- 
possible, in the works composed before their friendship 
was dissolved by death, to separate their contributions." 



20 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



The authors of Maid^s Tragedy, Rule a Wife and Have a 
Wife, Beggar^ s Bush, A King and No King, etc. 

Selection : 

" Take, ! take those lips away, 
That so sweetly were foresworn ; 
And those eyes, the break of day, 

Lights that do mislead the morn. 
But my kisses bring again, 
Seals of love, but sealed in vain.""^ 

Bloody Brother. 
Philip Massinger (1584-1640), of whose plays eighteen 
are preserved, — six tragedies, eight comedies, and four 
tragi-comedies. The famous play of A New Way to Pay 
Old Debts, still keeps possession of the stage, for the sake 
of the finely-drawn character of Sir Giles Overreach. 

Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), the gallant soldier, was 
the author of the Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, a prose 
romance ; Defense of Poesie, and many beautiful sonnets. 

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), the gay courtier, the 
gallant soldier, the discoverer of Virginia, the father of 
English colonization, the wily diplomatist, the learned 
historian, the charming poet, was the writer of a History of 
the World, The Lie, Narrative of a Cruise to Guiana, etc. 

Richard Hooker (1553-1600) wrote the Laws of Eccle- 
siastical Polity, "the first book of which,'' Hallam says, 
''is at this day one of the masterpieces of English elo- 
quence." 

Thomas Tusser (1523-1580?) was the author of Five 
Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, 

John Ford (1586-1639) wrote The Lover's Melancholy, 
The Broken Heart, The Lady's Trial; but the plots of his 
finest tragedies are too horrible and revolting for produc- 
tion on the stage. 

Note.— To this bright galaxy of names may be added those of Web- 
ster, Chapman, Dekker, Middleton, Marston, Taylor, Tourneur, Broome, 
Heywood, and Shirley. 



* Also found in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



21 



Queries.— Who was the author of a History^ written in prison ? 
Who wrote A Woman Killed with Kindness? How did Sir 
Walter Kaleigh die? The author of Toxiphilus, apologizes in 
its preface for writing it in English ; who was the author ? Who 
wrote The Chameleon, in Scotch ? What dramatists were more 
popular than Shakespeare ? Upon what legend is Marlowe's Br. 
Faustus based ? Can you repeat the extract given from Bacon's 
essays? What are the writings of John Webster? What is 
meant by the Shakespearian- Bacon controversy ? What extracts 
can you give from King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Mer- 
chant of Venice and Eichard III. ? What were the two epic 
poems written by Josephus Iscanus? What are the works of 
Geoffrey Gaimar ? What does Polyolbion mean ? 

oo'^oo 

The Age of Milton. 

1625—1660. 

John Milton (1608-1674), the greatest of English poets 
succeeding Shakespeare, the precursor of an austere age, 
was a liberal, Protestant, and moralist. He first attended 
St. Paul's School and then the University of Cambridge. At 
the age of twelve he worked, in spite of his weak eyes and 
headaches, until midnight, and even later. Visiting Italy, 
his learning, fine Italian, and Latin style secured him the 
friendship and attachment of scholars, but his return to 
England was hastened by the breaking out of the Eevolu- 
tion, and, entering the service of Cromwell as Latin secre- 
tary, he contributed largely to the success of the Puritan 
cause by his pen. 

With a life full of marital misery, at the Restoration 
he was forced into retirement, where in poverty and 
blindness he composed his great epic. Paradise Lost. The 
poetical works are Samson Agonistes (a drama) ; Comus 
(a masque) ; V Allegro, II Penseroso, and Paradise Regained. 
Chief writings in prose are the History of the Reforma- 
tion, The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy, 
Tetrachordon, Areopagitica, DeLogicaleArte, History of Britain, 
etc. 



22 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



Selections : 

" The gray-hooded Even, 
Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed, 
Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain," 

Comus, 

" Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use 
Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, 
On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks." 

Ode at a Solemn Music. 

*• Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, 
And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, 
To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies." 

Lycidas. 

'* Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee 
Jest and youthful Jollity, 
Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, 
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles, 
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek. 
And love to live in dimple sleek ; 
Sport that wrinkled care derides. 
And Laughter holding both his sides. 
Come and trip it, as you go, 
On the light fantastic toe." — L' Allegro. 

" Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit 
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste 
Brought death into the world, and all our woe, 
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man 
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, 
Sing, heavenly Muse," etc. — Paradise Lost, 

Note.— In his sonnet to Lady Margaret Lay, Milton uses the expres- 
sion the ** Old Man Eloquent," in allusion to Isocrates. 

Contemporaries. 

John Bunyan (1628-1688), ''the poor, profane tinker," 
who after his conversion, and while a prisoner in Bedford 
jail, wrote that unequalled allegory. The Pilgrirri's Prog- 
ress. The author of many other works, this alone has 
made him immortal. 

Robert Burton (1576-1640) was the author of the Anat- 
omy of Melancholy, a perfect jungle and wilderness of 
learning and of quotations from every author who ever 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



23 



lived and wrote in Western Asia or Europe, from the dawn 
of literature down to the sixteenth century. He is believed 
to have put an end to his own existence. 

Abraham Oowley (1618-1667), who in the preface of 
the work containing his entire poems, Anacreontics, Miscel- 
lanies, Pindaric Odes, The Mistress, and the Davideis, advised 
peaceful submission to the existing government of 1656, 
and for this tenderness to the usurpation was included in 
the act of oblivion maliciously extended by Charles II. to 
his friends. 

Sir John Denham (1615-1668), especially remembered 
for his Cooper^ s Hill. He died insane. 

Selection : 

*' No quick reply to dubious questions make ; 
Suspense and caution still prevent mistake." 

Robert Herrick (1591-1674), in whose writings love, 
romantic loyalty, and airy elegance are charmingly repre- 
sented, the author of lyric songs, such as Gather Rosebuds 
while ye May, Cherry Ripe, etc. 

Sir Richard Lovelace (1618-1658), of elegant scholar- 
ship, writer of many charming lyrics, some of which were 
written in prison. 

Selection: ^ . 

To Althea. 

" When Love with unconfinM wings 

Hovers within my gates, 
And my divine Althea brings 

To whisper at the grates ; 
When I lie tangled in her hair, 

And fettered to her eye, 
The birds that wanton in the air 

Know no such liberty." 

Richard Crashaw (16207-1650), the religious enthu- 
siast, author of Steps to the Temple, and Music^s Duel. He is 
said to be the author of the familiar line, 

'^Lymphapudica Deum videt et erubuit.'^ * 
* The conscious water saw its God and blushed." 



24 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Note.— "When Milton was attending school, the subject for poetical com- 
position happened to be our Saviour's first miracle of turning water into 
wine at the marriage feast. Milton, from whom much w^as expected, 
merely wrote on his slate — 

The conscious water saw its God and blushed," 

and to him the judges awarded the prize. 

George Herbert (1593-1632) wrote The Church-Porch, 
Country Parson, The Elixir, Virtue, and Jacula Prudentum. 
From the latter is taken " God's mill grinds slow but sure." 

George Wither (1588-1667), a soldier and poet on the 
side of Cromwell, wrote Shepherd's Hunting, Emblems, 
Abuses Stript and Whipt (a satire), etc. 

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) was the author of 
Hydriotaphia, or Urn-Burial, the Pseudoxia Epidemica, and 
Religio Medici, a species of Confession of Faith. 

Izaak Walton (1593-1683), who lived to the great age of 
ninety in ease and tranquillity, amusing himself with liter- 
ature and his beloved pastime of angling, was the author 
of that popular work the Complete Angler, and Walton^s 
Lives (of various theologians). 

Sir John Suckling (1609-1641), the lyric poet, who 
sings in his Ballad upon a Wedding : 

" Her feet beneath her petticoat 
Like little mice stole in and out, 

As if they feared the light ; 
But, oh, she dances such a way ! 
No sun upon an Easter-day 

Is half so fine a sight ! " 

The other writers of this age are the so-called meta- 
physical poets and reverends. Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) ; 
Jeremy Taylor, D. D. (1613-1667), the great pulpit orator; 
Dr. Isaac Barrow (1630-1677) ; Dr. Richard Baxter (1615- 
1691) ; Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), author of the Leviathan; 
Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1608-1673); William 
Chillingworth (1602-1644), called the immortal," etc. 

Queries.— Who was the author of Religion of a Physician (Reh- 
gio Medici ) ? What author was a great lover of fishing ? From what 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



25 



great writer is English literature generally supposed to date its 
origin? Who were the contemporaries of Shakespeare? What 
are the works of Jeremy Taylor? Who wrote the Anatomy of 
Melancholy f What is it ? Who was the Old Man Eloquent " ? 
Who achieved distinction in spite of his blindness? What great 
work was written while the author was confined in jail ? Who 
was called " the immortal " ? What familiar quotation is taken 
from Jacula Prudentum f Who was the first Poet-Laureate ? Who 
wrote sonnets to his lady-love while in prison ? What is the par- 
allel passage of Milton and Crashaw ? Who was called Holy 
George " ? What is the difference between a tragedy and a comedy ? 
What is the story of Robin Hood ? 

The Age of Dryden. 

1660-1700. 

John Dryden (1631-1700), the greatest poet of this age, 
was the son of Puritan parents. At first he was a partisan 
of Parliament, and after the death of Cromwell published 
a small poem in his honor. Upon the accession of Charles 
II. he was almost the first one to hail his Restoration, 
which he celebrated in a poem entitled Astrsea Redux, and 
was rewarded for this change of opinion by being elevated 
(in 1668) to the post of Poet-Laureate. His dramatic works 
are characterized by the gross indecencies found in all the 
literature of the court. Dry den's chief defect was a lack 
of principle ; his poverty, however, forced him to write 
not only for fame, but for bread. The best dramas are 
The Indian Emperor, and The Conquest of Granada ; those 
most read are All for Love, The Spanish Friar, and Don 
Sebastian, He wrote an Essay on Dramatic Poetry, Absalom 
and Achitophel (probably the severest satire in the lan- 
guage), while his last poetical labors were given to Trans- 
lations (Juvenal and Persius, and the ^neid), to Fables 
(founded upon the tales of Boccaccio and Chaucer), and 
Odes, of which St. Cecilia's Day is the most beautiful. The 
great poem The Hind and Panther was written in defence of 
the Catholic Church, 
3 



26 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



Selections : 

"A milk-white hind, immortal and unchanged, 

Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged ; 

Without unspotted, innocent withm, 

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin." 

The Hind and Panther, 

" Life is but an air 
That yields a passage to the whistling sword, 
And closes when 't is gone." 

" Fate seemed to wind him up for fourscore years : 
Yet proudly ran he on ten winters more ; 
Till like a clock worn out with eating time, 
The wheels of weary life at last stood still." 

** A man so various that he seemed to be 
Not one, but all mankind's epitome : 
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong. 
Was everything by starts, and nothing long ; 
But in the course of one revolving moon 
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon."^ 
Note.— It is said that when Dryden was attending the Westminster 
School, he was required to write on the same subject that had a few 
years before been given to Milton. "Being a great truant, he had not 
time to compose his verses, and when brought up he had only made one 
line of Latin and two of English : 

' Videt et erubuit lympha pudica Deum.' 
' The modest water, awed by power divine, 
Beheld its God, and blushed itself to wine,' 

which so pleased the master, that, instead of being angry, he said it was 
a presage of future greatness, and gave the youth a crown on this 
occasion." 

Samuel Butler (1612-1680), the celebrated author of 
Hudibras, a witty burlesque of the manners of the Puritans. 
" What Shakespeare is among English dramatists, Milton 
among English epic poets, Bunyan among English alle- 
gorists, Butler is among the Avriters of English burlesque — 
prince and paramount." Contradictory accounts are given 
of his youth and education, and all that is known of him 
with certainty is that he w^as poor. Notwithstanding the 



* This was intended for the Duke of Buckingham, satirized under the 
name of Zimri in Absalom and Achitophel. 



JENOLISE LITERATURE. 



27 



popularity of his poem at court, Butler looked in vain for 
promotion from Charles II., and at his death was buried at 
the expense of a friend.* 

Selections : 

" When civil dudgeon first grew high, 
And men fell out, they knew not why ; 
When hard words, jealousies, and fears, 
Set folks together by the ears, 
When gospel-trumpeter, surrounded 
With long-eared rout, to battle sounded ; 
And pulpit, drum ecclesiastick, 
Was beat with fist instead of a stick, — 
Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling, 
And out he rode a-colonelling." 

Description of Hudibras. 

*' For what is worth in anything 
But so much money as 't will bring ?" 

" He that complies against his will 
Is of his own opinion still." 



Other Writers. 

John Norris (1657-1711) wrote The Farting, in which 
occurs the line : 

" Like angels' visits, short and bright." 

Vide Thomas Campbell. 

Thomas Southerne (1660-1746), in the pathetic drama 
of Oroonoka, says : 

" Pity 's akin to love." 

* At a later period a handsome monument was erected to Butler, which 
gave occasion to the following epigram : 

" When Butler— needy wretch ! was yet alive, 
No generous patron would a dinner give : 
See him, when starved to death, and turned to dust, 
Presented with a monumental bust. 
The poet's fate is here in emblem shown : — 
He asked for bread, and he received a stone."— Isaac Watts, 



28 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



John Locke (1632-1704), the great philosopher, wrote 

an Essay Concerning the Human Understanding, 

Samuel Pepys (1632-1703) was the author of a Diary 
which was not known to be in existence until more than 
a century after his death. It is a chronicle of the gay and 
profligate society during the reign of Charles II. 

Selection : 

" May 11, 1667. My wife being dressed this day in fair hair, 
did make me so mad, that I spoke not one word to her, though 
I was ready to burst with anger." 

Hon. Eobert Boyle (1627-1691), a devout philosopher; 
John Evelyn, F.K.S. (1620-1706) ; Sir Wm. Temple (1628 
-1699), the graceful essayist; Wm. Penn (1644-1718), No 
Cross, No Crown, and George Fox (1624-1690), the founder 
of the Quaker sect. 

American Contemporaries. 

John Eliot, Roger Williams, Increase and Cotton 
Mather. 

Queries.— Dry den wrote : 

" Three poets in three distant ages born, 
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn." 

To what poets did he refer ? AVhat is the great work of Sir Isaac 
Newton (1642-1727) ? Who was the author of Terra, a tvork on 
Agriculture? By whom was the familiar saying, Pity 's akin to 
love " written ? From whom is the extract, When Greeks joined 
Greeks, then was the tug of war"? Ans. — Nathaniel Lee (1692). 
What celebrated divine was a fierce upholder of the doctrines of 
passive obedience? Dryden was the author of how many plays? 
What author asked for bread and received a stone f Define an 
epigram. What scientific society was organized at this time ? In 
what special fields of investigation were Newton, Harvey, Boyle, 
and Locke interested? How well were authors recompensed at 
this time ? 

Note The latter part of the seventeenth century produced a con- 
stellation of splendid dramatists who exhibit a strong contrast between 
the drama of the Elizabethan era and that of the Age of Dryden. They 
belong partly to the latter and partly to the following age. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



29 



The Age of Addison and Pope. 



Joseph Addison (1672-1719), ''the elegant Addison, 
the model of classical English," very early gave evidence of 
that accurate scholarship and refined taste which marked 
all his productions. A poem addressed to King William 
on one of his campaigns, written at the age of twenty- 
three, secured to him an annual pension of £300, which 
was discontinued at the king's death. The poem, com- 
memorative of the celebrated battle of Blenheim, called 
The Campaign^ led to a long series of political preferments. 
At the age of forty-four he was married to the dowager 
Countess of Warwick. He is alike distinguished in poetry 
and prose, and of the former are the Tragedy of Cato, and 
several beautiful hymns. His principal prose works are 
the papers contributed to the Tatter, the Spectator, and the 
Guardian. The Spectator has taken rank as one of the 
English Classics because of the immense fertility of inven- 
tion displayed in these charming papers, the variety of 
their subjects, and the singular felicity of their treatment, 
placing them among the masterpieces of fiction and of 
criticism. 

Selections : 

" When all thy mercies, my God, 
My rising soul surveys, 
Transported with the view I 'm lost 
In wonder, love, and praise." 

" There is scarcely a solecism in writing that the best author 
is not guilty of." 



Ought I in return to love him ? 

Echo. — Love him, love him. 

*' If he loves, as is the fashion, 

Should I churlishly forsake him ? 

3^ 



1700—1750. 



"Echo, tell me, while I wander, 

O'er this fairy plain to prove him, 




80 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Or, in pity to his passion, 

Fondly to my bosom take him ? 

Echo. — Take him, take him. 

" Thy advice, then, I '11 adhere to, 

Since in Cupid's chains I 've led him, 
And with Harry shall not fear to 
Marry, if you answer ' AVed him.' 

Echo. — Wed him, wed him." — Echo. 

Alexander Pope (1688-1744], born in London of a re- 
spectable Catholic family, was so deformed that his adult 
life was " one long disease." He did not attend college, 
but exhibited an extraordinary precocity of intellect, and 
by severe study made himself master of several languages, 
and acquired a vast fund of information. Commencing 
his literary career at sixteen by composing a collection of 
Pastorals, he translated portions of Statins, which were 
published in 1709. His latter days were past in a villa 
at Twickenham, a beautiful spot on the banks of the 
Thames. In his epistle to Lord Cobham he wrote the oft- 
quoted expression, " the ruling passion strong in death." 

And you, brave Cobham, to the latest breath 
Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death ; 
Such in those moments as in all the past, 
' Oh, save my country, Heaven I shall be your last.' " 

His w^orks are Essay on Criticism (1711), The Rape of the 
Lock (a mock-heroic poemj, ^Yindsor Forest, Temple of 
Fame, January and May, a translation of the Iliad and 
Odyssey ( though he employed the assistance of the poets 
AYiiliam Broome (1689-1745) and Elijah Fenton (1683-1730), 
on the last half [12 books] of the latter), Elegy on an Unfor- 
tunate Lady, Epistle from Sappho to Phaon, Epistle of Eloisa 
to Ahelard, the Dunciad (the most powerful literary satire 
that exists), Essay on Man, Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, etc. 

Selections : 

" Authors are judged by strange, capricious rules ; 
The great ones are thought mad, the small ones fools : 
Yet sure the best are most severely fated, 
For fools are only laughed at, wits are hated." 

From Prologue to the Three Weeks after Marriage. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



31 



" To teach vain wits a science little known, 
T' admire superior sense, and doubt their own." 

" Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul." 

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), who, with Addison and 
Pope, is one of the literary representatives of this age, was 
born in Dublin, of English family and descent. He passed 
three years of his infancy in England, attended a school at 
Kilkenny, and in 1682 w^ent to Trinity College, Dublin, 
where he occupied himself with desultory study, and 
finally received his degree with the notice that his con- 
duct was unsatisfactory to the scholastic authorities. A 
"hanger-on" the bounty of his relative. Sir William 
Temple, he first obtained the chaplaincy of Earl Berkeley, 
the viceroy of Ireland, and afterwards became dean of St. 
Patrick's. His relations with Esther Johnson (Stella), and 
Hester Vanhomrigh ( Vanessa), are two of the extraordinary 
events connected with the life of this remarkable man. 
The author of the exquisitely humorous pasquinade The 
Tale of a Tub, with Journal to Stella, Voyages of Gulliver, and 
innumerable pamphlets, political and historical. 

Selections : 

" Those inferior duties of life, which the French call les petites 
morales, or the smaller morals, are with us distinguished by the 
name of good manners or breeding." — Country Hospitality. 

" 'Tis an old maxim in the schools, 
That flattery 's the food of fools ; 
Yet now and then your men of wit 
Will condescend to take a bit." 

Cademis and Vanessa. 

"Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being 
eminent." 

" Bread is the staff of life." 

Poets of this Age. 

Aaron Hill (1685-1750), the author of seventeen plays 
and some other writings, best known through his conflict 
with Pope, wrote 



32 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 

" When Christ at Cana's feast, by power divine, 
Inspired cold water with the warmth of wine, 
See ! cried they, while in reddening tide it gushed. 
The bashful water saw its God and blushed." 

Nathaniel Hooke (1690-1764), the friend of Pope and 
author of a Roman History, in his Amanda (1753) sings, 

" If Owen Tudor prais'd his Madam's hue 
Cause in her cheeks the rose and lilie grew, 
Thou 'rt more praise-worthy than was Katherine ; 
There 's fresher York and Lancaster in thine." 

Matthew Prior (1664-1721), author of Country Mouse and 
City Mouse (a poem intended to ridicule Dryden's Hind and 
Panther), Alma, the epic Solomon, smd Henry and Emma. 

John Gay (1688-1732), the song writer and dramatist, 
wrote The Shepherd's Week, Trivia; or, the Art of Walking the 
Streets of London, the farce, Three Hours after Marriage, and 
Beggar's Opera. 

William Collins (1721-1759), who died insane, was the 
author of many Odes (Ode to Evening), and the exquisite 
verses, How Sleep the Brave f 

Selection : 

" When music, heavenly maid, was young, 
While yet in early Greece she sung, 
The Passions oft, to hear her shell. 
Thronged round her magic cell." 

George Farquhar (1678-1707), in the Beaux'* Stratagem, 
wrote : 'T was for the good of my country that I should be 
abroad," and in The Twin Rivals, Necessity, the mother of 
invention." 

Thomas Parnell (1679-1717), in his Translation of the 
Pervigilium Veneris,^ uses the much paraphrased quotation : 

" Let those love now who never lov'd before ; 
Let those who always loved now love the more." 



* Written in the time of Julius Csesar, and by some erroneously 
ascribed to Catullus : 

Cras amet qui numquam amavit ; 
Quique amavit, cras amet. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



33 



Colley Gibber (1671-1757), the poet-laureate to George 
II., was both an actor and author. His best piece is The 
Careless Husband. 

Edward Young (1681-1765) wrote the strikingly origi- 
nal poem, Night Thoughts. 

Prose Writers. 

James Hervey (1714-1758) wrote The Meditations, Theron 
and Aspasia, etc. 

Daniel Defoe (1661-1731), regarded as the founder of 
the English novel, wrote Robinson Crusoe, True-Born Eng- 
lishman, and numerous other works of fiction. 

Sir Richard Steele (1675-1729), the friend of Addison, 
was the founder of the Tatler, and author of the religious 
treatise, the Christian Hero. 

Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751), 
author of Letters on the Study and Use of History, Idea of a 
Patriot King, etc. 

Lady Mary Montagu (1690-1762), whose society was 
cultivated by the most distinguished men of letters of her 
time, wrote the delightful Letters, describing her travels 
through Europe and the East. 

Bishop Berkeley (1684-1753), who resided for a time at 
Newport, E. I. ; and Dr. Philip Doddridge (1702-1751), 
were theological writers. 

American Contemporaries. 

Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, and 
James Otis. 

Queries. — What poem of Addison is of disputed authorship? 
Who was called the Prince of Essayists ? How many have written 
an Ode on St. Cecilia's Day ? What comparison is there between 
the versification of Dryden and Hill, Milton and Crashaw? At 
what age did Addison enter the University of Oxford? Who is 
regarded as the founder of the English novel ? Who was the author 
of the quotation, Necessity, the mother of invention " ? What 
poet of this age died insane? For what purpose was Prior^s 

C 



84 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Country Mouse and City House written? William Congreve 
(1670-1729) stood at the head of comic dramatists ; what were his 
writings? What did Pope write to Lord Cobham? Which pre- 
ceded the other in point of time, Dryden or Pope ? What is the 
character of Addison's style? What are the writings of James 
Thomson (1700-1748) ? Have you read Young's Love of Fame, the 
Universal Passion ? Who was Thomas Tickell ? By whom was 
Moll Flanders written ? Who was the author of Pastor Fido f 

The Age of Johnson. 

1750-^1800. 

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the leading literary repre- 
sentative of this age, was born in Lichfield. The son of a 
learned but poor bookseller, he was assisted by a benevo- 
lent patron with the means of studying at Pembroke Col- 
lege, Oxford, but this resource failing, he was obliged to 
leave at the end of three years without a degree. His 
struggles to the eminence he afterwards held among men 
of letters are really pathetic. He established, and carried 
on alone, two periodical papers [Idler and Rambler) in the 
popular style of Addison and Steele. The noted heavy clas- 
sical style of Johnson is admirably characterized by Gold- 
smith, who said to him, '^If you were to write a fable about little 
fishes, doctor, you would make the little fishes talk like whales.^^ 
This w^as the age of clubs, and among the celebrated social 
meetings was the society founded by Johnson, of which 
Garrick, Goldsmith, Bishop Percy, Beauclerc, Eeynolds, 
Burke, Langton, and other distinguished men wxre mem- 
bers. His biography was written by James Bos well (1740- 
1795). Principal poems are London, The Vanity of Human 
Wishes, and his tragedy of Irene ; while in prose he wrote 
Basselas (a romance). The Lives of the Poets, and Dictionary 
of the English Language. 

Selections : 

" Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar, but 
not coarse ; and elegant, but not ostentatious, must give his days 
and nights to the volumes of Addison." 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



35 



" Wealth, heaped on wealth, nor truth nor safety buys ; 
The dangers gather as the treasures rise.'' 

"Knowledge is of two kinds; we know a subject ourselves, 
or we know where we can find information upon it." 

" Of all the griefs that harass the distressed, 
Sure the most bitter is a scornful j est ; 
Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, 
Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart." 

Oliver Goldsmith (1728^-1774) was an Irishman, 
born at the village of Pallas, in the county of Longford, 
and remarkable alike for his strength and his weaknesses. 
He successively tried the role of theologian (he was rejected 
by the Bishop for presenting himself at the examination 
in a pair of scarlet breeches), lawyer, and doctor, com- 
mencing his literary career in 1756. Johnson said of him 
that "he wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll." 
His principal poems are The Traveller and Deserted Village, 
Also the writer of The Vicar of Wakefield (a novel). She Stoops 
to Conquer (a comedy). Life of Beau Nash, Chinese Letters, 
Good-Natured Man, while various Histories comprise the 
remainder of his works. 

Selections : 

"E'en now where Alpine solitudes ascend, 
I sit me down a weary hour to spend." 

Then pilgrim turn, thy cares forego. 

All earth-born cares are wrong ; 
Man wants but little here below. 

Nor wants that little long." — The Hermit. 

*' No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale. 
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail ; 
No more the smith his dusky brow shall clear. 
Relax his pond'rous strength, and lean to hear ; 
The host himself no longer to be found. 
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round ; 
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest. 
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest." 

The Deserted Village. 

* His epitaph by Dr. Johnson says November 29, 1731. Other accounts 
state that he was born in 1729. But 1728 is the correct year. 



36 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



Thomas Gray (1716-1771), the literary recluse, distin- 
guished as a poet and scholar, was born in London, re- 
ceived his education at Eton, and afterwards settled in 
learned retirement at Cambridge, where he passed most of 
his life. Travelling in Italy and France as tutor to Horace 
Walpole, he quarrelled with his pupil and returned home 
alone. He accepted the appointment of Professor of Mod- 
ern History in the University, but never exercised the 
duties of his office. For seven years he was engaged in 
preparing his celebrated poem Elegy written in a Country 
Churchyard. His other works are Letters (noted for their 
clear, elegant, and picturesque style), Odes— On the Spring, 
On the Death of a Favorite Cat, On a Distant Prospect of Eton 
College — The Bard, Progress of Poetry, The Fatal Sisters, De- 
scent of Odin, To Adversity, etc 

Selections : 

" There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 
His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 
And pore upon the brook that babbles by." 

Elegy, 

" Awake, ^olian lyre ! awake, 

And give to rapture all thy trembling strings ! 
From Helicon's harmonious springs 

A thousand rills their mazy progress take." 

Progress of Poetry, 

William Cowper (1731-1800), the most unhappy of 
men, who, though profoundly religious, with a gentle dis- 
position and a blameless life, became a despairing maniac. 
His most popular work. The Task (a long poem in six 
books), takes its name from the fact of its being a task set 
him to perform by his friend, Lady Austen. Famous also 
as the author of John Gilpin, The Castaway, Hymns, and On 
the Receipt of my Mother^ s Picture, his most pathetic piece, of 
which we give this extract : 

" that those lips had language ! Life has passed 
With me but roughly since I heard the last. 
Those lips are thine ; thy own sweet smile I see, 
The same that oft in childhood solaced me : 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



37 



Voice only fails ; else how distinct they say, 

* Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away ! ' " 

" Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness, 
Some boundless contiguity of shade. 
Where rumor of oppression and deceit, 
Of unsuccessful or successful war. 
Might never reach me more ! " — The Time-Piece. 

"He is a freeman whom the truth makes free. 
And all are slaves beside." — The Task, Book V. 

" I hastily seized it, unfit as it was 
For a nosegay, so dripping and drowned, 
And shaking it rudely — too rudely, alas ! 
I snapped it ; it fell to the ground.'' — The Rose. 

Robert Burns (1759-1796), renowned for his pathetic 
and spirit-stirring songs, was born in the frost and snow of 
a Scotch winter, in a cottage built by his father, a poor 
farmer of Ayrshire. From the depths of poverty he raised 
himself to a footing of equality with the great and learned, 
and for one season, at least, he was " toasted and praised." 
A drunken sleep in the streets engendered rheumatic fever, 
which, a few days after, took him to the grave in his thirty- 
eighth year. His principal poems are Cotter^ s Saturday Night, 
The Holy Fair, Man was Made to Mourn, The Jolly Beggars, 
Tarn 0' Shanter, Of a' the airts the wind can blow. Ye Banks and 
Braes, Twa Dogs, Address to the DeHl, Vision of Liberty, etc. 

Selections : 

" Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon, 

How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair ! 
How can ye chant, ye little birds, 

And I sae weary, fu' o' care ! 
Thou 'It break my heart, thou warbling bird, 

That wantons thro' the flowering thorn : 
Thou minds me o' departed joys. 

Departed never to return." — Bonny Doon. 

It's guid to be merry and wise, 

It's guid to be honest and true ; 
It 's guid to support Caledonia's cause, 

And bide by the bufi" and the blue." 

Here 's a health to them that 's awa. 



4 



38 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



"From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad — 
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings : 
' An honest man 's the noblest work of God.' " 

" Who made the heart, 'tis He alone 

Decidedly can try us ; 
He knows each chord — its varying tone, 

Each spring — its various bias. 
Then at the balance let 's be mute, 

AVe never can adjust it ; 
What 's done, we partly may compute, 

But know not what's resisted." 



wad some power the giftie gie us 
To see oursels as ithers see us ! 
It wad frae monie a blunder free us 
And foolish notion." 



Contemporaries. 
Poets. 

George Barring'ton (1755 ) wrote in his "New 

South Wales:" 

" True patriots all ; for be it understood 
We left our country for our country's good." 

William Shenstone (1714-1763), favorably known by 
his poem The Schoolmistress, wrote the feeling lines : 

" Who e'er has travelled life's dull round, 
Where'er his journeys may have been. 
May sigh to think he still has found 
His warmest welcome at an inn.""^ 

George Colman (1733-1794) was the author of The 

Jealous Wife, and The Clandestine Marriage. 

James Seattle (1735-1803), w^ho occupied the chair of 
Moral Philosophy, wrote The Minstrel, and Essay on Truth. 
Selection : 

" No jealousy their dawn of love o'ercast, 
Nor blasted were their wedded days with strife." 

James Macpherson (1738-1796), who published a 
great number of fragments of ancient poetry under the 



* Inscribed on the window-pane of tlie inn at Henley, England, 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



39 



title of their reputed author, Ossian; Thomas Chat- 
terton (1752-1770), ''the marvellous hoy;'' and William 
Henry Ireland (1777-1835), were the literary impostors 
of this age and century. 

Historians. 

David Hume (1711-1776) wrote a Treatise on Human 
Nature, and History of England (from the accession of the 
Stuart dynasty to the Kevolution of 1668). 

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), the writer of an essay 
(in French) on the Study of Literature, and the History of 
the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

William Robertson (1721-1793), distinguished by the 
eloquence of his narrative, was the author of History of 
Scotland, History of the Reign of Charles V., and History of 
the Discovery of America. 

David Dalrymple (1726-1792) was the author of Annals 
of Scotland from Malcolm III. to the Accession of the Stuarts. 

Novelists. 

Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) wrote Pamela, Clar- 
issa Harlowe, and Sir Charles Grandison. 

Henry Fielding (1707-1754) wrote Joseph Andrews, 
The Life of Jonathan Wild the Great, Tom Jones, and Amelia. 

Tobias George Smollett (1721-1771), the author of 
the three great novels, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, 
and Humphrey Clinker, also wrote translations of Don 
Quixote and Gil Bias. 

Lawrence Sterne (1713-1768), celebrated as a hu- 
morist and sentimentalist, is best known by his Tristram 
Shandy and Sentim.ental Journey. Uncle Toby, Widow 
Wadman, Corporal Trim, and Dr. Slop are imperishable 
characters. 

Other Writers. 

Edmund Burke (1729-1797), one of the leading orators 
and statesmen, was the writer of an Essay on the Sublime 



40 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 

and Beautiful, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and 
many essays and orations. 

Horace Walpole (1717-1797), the chronicler of the 
court scandal of his day, wrote The Castle of Otranto. 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), of whom 
Byron said that he made the best speech — that on the 
Begums of Oude; wrote the two best comedies — the 
Rivals and the School for Scandal; the best opera — the 
Duenna ; and the best farce — the Critic, 

" The Spanish fleet thou canst not see, — because — 
It is not yet in sight." — The Critic. 

Hannah More (1745-1833) was the author of The In- 
flexible Captive, Percy, and The Fatal Falsehood, tragedies ; 
Ccelehs in Search of a Wife; and many other popular tales 
and prose works. 

Thomas Percy (1729-1811) is noted for his collected 
Reliques of English Poetry. 

Hugh Blair (1718-1801) wrote Sermons, and w^ell-known 
Rhetorical Lectures. 

William Falconer (1732-1769), the author of TJie Ship- 
wreck, was himself shipwrecked on The Aurora. 

Junius, supposed to be Sir Philip Francis (1740-1818), 
author of the celebrated Letters of Junius. 

Eichard Challoner (1691-1781); Thomas Reid (1710- 
1796); William Paley (1743-1805); Adam Smith (1723- 
1790) ; and the Wesley s, John and Charles, were noted 
theological and metaphysical writers. 

Queries. — Who wrote the Commentaries on the Laws of England f 
David Garrick wrote The Miss in her Teens; what are his other 
plays? Who was the author of The Prophecy of Famine? What 
''entertaining book'' was written by Gilbert White? What is 
meant by a '' Johnsonese " style ? Who was as much distinguished 
for his conversational powers as for his writings ? AVhat anecdote 
is related of General Wolfe reading Gray's Elegy? What was 
Goldsmith's university experience ? Have you read of Ye Cheshire 
Cheese, that old inn in London where Ben Jonson, and later, Dr. 
Johnson, Garrick^ and other choice spirits, passed the evenings for 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



41 



many years ? Can you give the birthplace of Sterne ? of Cowper ? 
of Burns ? Can you regard Burns as an illustration of the adage, 
Pmta nascitur, non fit (Poets are born, not made) ? Why ? What 
is the meaning of the statement that Goldsmith was an intensely 
subjective poet"? Who wrote Man^s inhumanity to man makes 
countless thousands mourn ? What writer was a literary recluse ? 
How long was Gray in writing his Elegy ? Where will you find 
the line, Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness " ? What extract 
has been given from George Barrington ? Who was the author of 
" All is not gold that glitters " ? Ans. In Shakespeare's llerchant 
of Venice, ii. 7, Heywood's Proverbs, 1546, and Herbert's Jacula 
Prudentum, and Googe's Eglog^s, Epitaphs, etc., 1563, is found 
" All that glisters is not gold " ; in Middleton's A Fair Quarrel, 
V. i., All is not gold that glisteneth " ; in Chaucer's The Chanones 
Yemannes Tale, "All thing, which that shineth as the gold. Ne 
is no gold, as I have herd it told " ; in Lydgate's On the Mutability 
of Human Affairs, '^All is not golde that outward sheweth 
bright"; in Spenser's Faerie Queene, "Gold all is not that doth 
golden seem," and in Dryden's Hind and Panther^ " All, as they 
say, that glitters is not gold." 

The Georgian Age. 

1800-184:0. 

Note.— To this epoch have been applied the terms Age of Scott and 
Age of Romantic Poetry. To the latter expression there is no ordinary 
objection, but other writers than Scott— in fact the representatives 
of many different " schools "—have left their impress upon the literary 
gatherings of our mother tongue, and without making an individual 
selection, we have given the general division included in the above- 
named age. 

George Gordon Noel Byron (1788-1824) was the 
most distinguished poet of his time. His famous retort 
upon the Edinburgh critics, English Bards and Scotch 
Reviewers, displays the elegant invectiveness of English, 
when inspired by hate and contempt. Graduating at Ox- 
ford, he travelled on the Continent for two years, and, upon 
his return, married Miss Milbanke, for the purpose, as is 
generally supposed, of obtaining money to pay his debts. 
A year after the marriage she left him, taking with her 
their infant daughter, who subsequently became Lady 
Wentworth. The year of his death, after a residence in 
4* 



42 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



Switzerland and Italy, Byron went to Greece to assist that 
struggling nation in their fight for independence, dying a 
few months after at Missolonghi, of a fever resulting from 
exposure. His finest poem, containing magnificent descrip- 
tions, fine imagery, and noble sentiments, is Childe Harold. 
The others best known are The Giaour, The Bride ofAhydos, 
The Corsair, Don Juan, The Prisoner of Chillon, Mazeppa, The 
Siege of Corinth, The Lament of Tasso, The Vision of Judgment, 
and many shorter poems. Besides these, he wrote Man- 
fred, Cain, and several dramas. 

Selections : 

" If still she loves thee, hoard that gem ; 
'Tis worth thy vanished diadem." 

" 'T is sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark 

Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home ; 
'T is sweet to know there is an eye will mark 

Our coming, and look brighter when we come ; 
'T is sweet to be awaken' d by the lark 

Or lulled by falling waters ; sweet the hum 
Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, 
The lisp of children, and their earliest words." 

Don Juan, 

" The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ; 
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee." 

Destruction of Sennacherib. 

"Ancient of days ! august Athena ! where, 
Where are thy men of might ? thy grand in soul ? 
Gone — glimmering through the dream of things that were : 
First in the race that led to Glory's goal, 
They won, and pass'd away : is this the whole? 
A school-boy's tale, the wonder of an hour! 
The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole 
Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower, 
Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power." 

Childe Harold. 

Thomas Moore (1779-1852), who survived most of his 
contemporaries, was a native of Ireland and a student at 
Trinity College, Dublin. He was at one time a government 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



43 



official at Bermuda, visited the United States, and travelled 
on the Continent. When only fourteen years of age he 
published some verses in the Anthologia Hibernica, which 
displayed the promised wealth of his genius. As a writer 
of impassioned love songs, Anacreontic odes, and stirring 
Irish melodies, he has no superior. His life was a social 
success, free from all embarrassments, while his great labor 
of love was the preparation for the press of the Life and 
Letters of Lord Byron, his unhappy, misanthropic friend. 
The author of Lalla Rookh, The Fudge Family in Paris, 
and th^ Loves of the Angels. 

Selections : 

" With hopes, that but allure to fly, 

With joys, that vanish while he sips. 
Like Dead-Sea fruits, that tempt the eye. 
But turn to ashes on the lips ! " 

Tlie Fire- Worshippers. 

" Long, long be my heart with such memories filled. 
Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled ; 
You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, 
But the scent of the roses will cling round it still." 

Farewell ! 

" The time I 've lost in wooing, 
In watching and pursuing. 

The light that hes 

In woman's eyes. 
Has been my heart's undoing ; 
Though Wisdom oft hath sought me, 
I scorned the lore she brought me, 

My only books 

Were woman's looks. 
And Folly 's all they 've taught me." 

Percy Bysshe Shelley* (1792-1822) was drowned in 
the Bay of Spezzia, Italy. The body was found on the 
beach some days afterward, and, as the regulations of the 



*As exhibiting the difference between English poets, it has been said 
that *' Chaucer describes men and things as they are; Shakespeare, as 
they would he under the circumstances supposed ; Spenser, as we would 
wish them to be ; Milton, as they ought to be ; Byron, as they ought not to 
be; and Shelley, as they never can be," 



44 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



port compelled all things cast up on the shore to be burned, 
as a precaution against the plague.. Lord Byron and Mr. 
Trelawney, a common friend, erected a funeral pyre, and 
the body was consumed by fire on the 15th of August : the 
ashes being entombed in the Protestant cemetery at Rome. 
Shelley, in his childhood, showed signs of such unusual 
genius that he was considered eccentric. His first poetical 
work of any importance was Queen Mah. Other productions 
of his genius were Revolt of Islam, Rosalind and Helen, Lines 
written among the Euganean Hills, Prometheus Unbound (his 
grandest poem), the powerful tragedy The Cenci, Ode to a 
Skylark, Swellfoot the Tyrant, the lyrical drama Hellas, and 
Adonais, a monody on the death of Keats. 

Selections : 

" Beneath is spread, like a green sea, 
The waveless plain of Lombardy, 
Bounded by the vaporous air, 
Islanded by cities fair ; 
Underneath day's azure eyes, 
Ocean's nursling, Venice, lies." 

The Plain of Lombardy, 

*' In the golden lightning 
Of the sunken sun, 
O'er which clouds are bright 'ning, 
Thou dost float and run 

Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun." 

Ode to a Skylark. 

"We look before and after, and pine for what is not; 
Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught ; 
Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought." 

John Keats (1795-1821) was born in London and died 
in Eome. He distinguished himself at school by his gen- 
erous and affectionate disposition, and his intellectual gifts 
and ambition. Endymion, published in 1818, was re- 
ceived with a storm of abuse by the critics, and it is a 
general supposition that the pain inflicted on his sensi- 
tive mind by this harshness occasioned his early death. 
His last words were, " I feel the daisies growing over me." ^ 



mOLISH LITERATURE. 



45 



The author of Isabella, To the Nightingale, Eve of St. Agnes, 
Lamia, and the unfinished Hyperion. 

Selections : 

" Thou still unravished bride of quietness! 
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, 
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme." 

Ode on a Grecian Urn, 

" A thing of beauty is a joy forever ; 
Its loveliness increases ; it will never 
Pass into nothingness." — Endymion. 

The Lake Poets " is a name often applied " to a cer- 
tain brotherhood of poets who haunted for some years 
about the lakes of Cumberland," and who were erroneously 
thought to have united on some settled theory of compo- 
sition and style. William Wordsworth (1770-1850), 
who wrote the Excursion, the Prelude, Peter Bell, Sonnets on 
the River Duddon, Yarrow Revisited, and several other poems 
noted for beautiful references to natural scenery and na- 
ture generally; Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), 
the philosophic poet and critic, whose life was made miser- 
able by the use of opium, but whose works are indispen- 
sable to the lover of literature, the author of Lectures on 
Shakespeare, Christabel, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Genevieve, 
Remorse, a tragedy, Biographia lAteraria, and Table-Talk ; 
and Robert Southey (1774-1843), writer of Thalaba, Joan 
of Arc, The Curse of Kehama, Roderick, the Last of the Goths, 
The Cid (translated from the Spanish), a History of the Penin- 
sular War, and the Lives of Nelson, Wesley, Kirke White, 
and Cowper, in addition to many short poems and sketches, 
were regarded as the chief representatives of this so-called 
school; but Charles Lamb (1775-1834), the humorist 
(author of John Woodvil, a drama, and Essays of Elia), 
Lloyd and Wilson were also included under the same 
name. 

Selections : 

" He had no malice in his mind — 
No ruffles on his shirt." — Wordsworth, 



46 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



" O'er rough and smooth she trips along, 
And never looks behind ; 
And sings a solitary song 
That whistles in the wind." 

Wordsworth's Lucy Gray. 

"Ah ! little doth the young one dream, 
When full of play and childish cares, 

What power is in his wildest scream, 
Heard by his mother unawares ! 

He knows it not, he can not guess ; 

Years to a mother bring distress ; 

But do not make her love the less. 

" My son, if thou be humbled, poor, 

Hopeless of honor and of gain, 
Oh ! do not dread thy mother's door; 

Think not of me with grief and pain, 
I now can see with better eyes ; 
The worldly grandeur I despise, 
And Fortune with her gifts and lies." — Wordsworth. 

" They have whetted their teeth against the stones. 
And now they are picking the bishop's bones ; 
They gnawed the flesh from every limb. 
For they were sent to do judgment on him." 



" How beautiful is night ! 

A dewy freshness fills the silent air ; 
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, 

Breaks the serene of heaven ; 
In full-orbed glory yonder moon divine 
Rolls through the dark-blue depths. 
Beneath her steady ray 
The desert-circle spreads 



" ' Most women have no character at all,' said Pope, and meant 
it for satire. Shakespeare, who knew men and women much 
better, saw that it, in fact, was the perfection of women to be 
characterless. Every one wishes a Desdemona or Ophelia for a 
wife, — creatures who, though they may not understand you, do 
always feel you and feel with you." — Coleridge. 

" Swans sing before they die : 't were no bad thing 
Did certain persons die before they sing." — Ibid. 



Southey's Bishop Hatto, 




ENGLISH LITERATURE, 



47 



Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), the Wizard of the North, 
who was great in poetry, great in prose, great in character, 
and last, unfortunately, great in misfortune. From the fact 
that a lameness in the right leg, contracted when he was 
only a year and a half old, prevented him from attending 
school, many years of his youth were passed in the country. 
He first studied law and began to practise with fair pros- 
pects of success in 1792, but literature engrossed his time 
and thoughts. His first publication was in 1796 of trans- 
lations of Lenore," and other German poems by Burger. 
These were followed by the compilation of The Minstrelsy 
of the Scottish Border, containing many original pieces, in 
1802. Other poems are The Lay of the Last Minstrel, 
Marmion, The Lady of the Lake, The Vision of Don RodericTc, 
Rokehy, The Lord of the Isles, Harold the Dauntless, and TJie 
Bridal of Triermain. Between 1816 and 1826, he wrote the 
eighteen Waverley Novels. The latter year brought ruin to 
him by the failure of the houses of Constable and Ballan- 
tyne, for with the latter he had been in partnership since 
1805. For the succeeding six years, he struggled by strenu- 
ous application to retrieve his fortune, but, worn out, he 
hurried home from Italy to die at Abbotsford, on the after- 
noon of a calm day in September. 
Selections : 

" Woman ! in our hours of ease, 

Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 

And variable as the shade 

By the light quivering aspen made ; 

When pain and anguish wring the brow, 

A ministering angel thou ! " 

The Death of Marmion. 
" And ne'er did Grecian chisel trace 
A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace 
Of finer form, or lovelier face ! 
What though the sun with ardent frown, 
Had slightly tinged her cheek with brown, — 
What though no rule of courtly grace 
To measured mood had trained her pace — 
A foot more light, a step more true, 
Ne'er from the heath-flower dashed the dew." 

The Lady of the Lake. 



48 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



" Oh, many a shaft at random sent, 
Finds mark the archer little meant ; 
And many a word at random spoken, 
May soothe or wound a heart that 's broken." 

Lord of the Isles. 

Thomas Hood (1789-1845), the humorist and poet, was 
born in London, and at his fifteenth year, after receiv- 
ing a miscellaneous education, was placed in the count- 
ing-house of a Eussian merchant. This position he left to 
learn the art of engraving. In 1821 he became sub-editor 
of the ''London Magazine," having already w^ritten fugitive 
papers for the periodicals. Odes and Addresses soon after 
appeared, follow^ed by Whims av.d Oddities, National Tales, 
and Tylney Hall, a novel. 

At this time confined to a sick-bed, from w^hich he never 
rose, in his anxiety to provide for his wife and children, he 
composed those poems, too few^ in number, but immortal in 
the English language, such as the Song of the Shirt, the Song 
of the Laborer, and the Bridge of Sighs. He peacefully 
breathed his last on May 3d. 

Selections : 

" Oh, but to breathe the breath 

Of the cowslip and primrose sweet, 
With the sky above my head 

And the grass beneath my feet ! 
For only one short hour 

To feel as I used to feel, 
Before I knew the woes of want, 
And the walk that costs a meal ! " 

The Song of the Shirt. 

" Thou pretty opening rose ! 
(Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose !) 
Balmy and breathing music like the south; 
(He really brings my heart into my mouth !) 
Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star ; 
(I wish that window had an iron bar !) 
Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove, 
(I '11 tell you what, my love, — 
I can not write unless he 's sent above !) " 

A Parental Ode to my Infant Son. 



ENGLISn LITERATURE, 



49 



Thomas Campbell (1777-1844), who became famous 
at the age of twenty -two as the author of Pleasures of Hope. 
Educated in Glasgow, he was elected Lord Eector of the 
University in 1827. While abroad he was a spectator of 
the battle of Hohenlinden, and commemorated the scene 
in his brilliant poem of that name. He w^rote voluminously 
in prose, but his principal poems are Ye Mariners of England, 
The Exile of Erin, LochieVs Warning, Gertrude of Wyoming, 
The Battle of the Baltic, The Pilgrim of Glencoe^ and Lord 
Ullin^s Daughter, 

Selections : 

' Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, 
And robes the mountain in its azure hue." 

Pleasures of Hope. 

*' Cease, every joy, to ghmmer on my mind. 
But leave — oh ! leave the light of Hope behind ! 
What though my winged hours of bliss have been, 
Like angel-visits, few and far between.'' 

" 'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And coming events cast their shadows before.'' 

LochieVs Warning. 

James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862) was an Irish- 
man, famous as an actor, elocutionist, and dramatic author 
of such plays as Virginius, William Tell,"^ The Beggar of Beth- 
nal Green, The Hunchback, The Wife, a Tale of Mantua, Caius 
Gracchus, and Love. He became a Baptist minister in his 
old age, wrote some controversial works, and died at 
Torquay. 

Other Poets of this Age, 

Allan Cunningham (1785-1842), a Scotch poet and 
miscellaneous writer, was born at Blackwood and died in 
London. 



* Schiller, (1759-1805) who is next to Goethe, the greatest German poet, 
is the author of Wallenstein, the Robbers, etc., and wrote the play of WU- 
helm Tell, which is his great dramatic work. 
5 , D 



50 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Selection : 

" Tripping through the silken grass 
O'er the path-divided dale, 
Mark the rose-complexioned lass 
With her well-poised milking pail." 

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), whose writings are graceful, 
sprightly, and full of fancy, wrote the Story of Rimini (an 
Italian tale In verse), started the Indicator^ and was associ- 
ated with Byron and Shelley in their projected paper, the 
Liberal. His most celebrated poem is Captain Sword and 
Captain Pen. 

Samuel Rogers (1763-1855), the banker poet, was the 
author of Pleasures of Memory, Human Life, and Italy, 

Selection : 

" The school's lone porch, with reverend mosses gray, 
Just tells the pensive pilgrim where it lay. 
Mute is the' bell that rung at peep of dawn, 
Quickening my truant feet across the lawn : 
Unheard the shout that rent the noontide air, 
When the slow dial gave a pause to care. 
Up streams, at every step, to claim a tear, 
Some little friendship formed and cherished here, 
And not the lightest leaf, but trembling teems 
With golden visions and romantic dreams ! " 

James Montgomery (1771-1854), who wrote poems 
while a boy, was the author of The Wanderer of Switzerland, 
The West Indies, The World before the Flood, Greenland, and 
The Pelican Island, and other Poems. 

Rev. Charles Wolfe (1791-1823), is chiefly known as 
the author of the celebrated lines on the Death of Sir John 
Moore, published in 1817. 

Bryan Waller Procter, " Barry Cornwall " (1790-1874), 
a poet of great merit, with a mind both of exquisite tact 
and original power," wrote A Sicilian Story and other Poems, 
Marcian Colonna, an Italian tale, Mirandola, The Sequestra- 
tion of a Bereaved Lover, A Pauperis Funeral, A Petition to 
Time, The Stormy Petrel, The Girl of Provence and other 
Poems, etc. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



51 



Robert Pollok (1799-1827) wrote the once celebrated 
poem. The Course of Time. 

William Motherwell (1797-1835) is chiefly known for 
his Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern, with Notes and Introduction, 
and his Narrative and Lyrical Poems. 

Rev. George Crabbe (1754-1832), the realistic poet, was 
the author of The Village, The Newspaper, The Parish Register, 
The Library, Tales in Verse, and Tales of the Hall. 

John Keble (1792-1866), who was Professor of Poetry 
at Oxford, in 1833, gained his chief distinction as a writer 
of sacred lyrics, such as The Christian Year ; or Thoughts in 
Verse, for the Sundays and Holidays throughout the Year, Lyra 
Innocentium, etc. 

Bishop Heber (1783-1826) wrote From Greenland'' s Icy 
Mountains, and other beautiful hymns. 

Mrs. Felicia Hemans (1794-1835), many of whose 
songs breathe a thrilling music, was the author of Early 
Blossoms (published before she was fifteen years old), The 
Treasures of the Deep, The Forest Sanctuary, Lays, Lyrics, etc., 
Songs of the Affections, and such gems as The Graves of a 
Household, and the Homes of England. 
Selection : 

" Thou hast a charmed cup, Fame ! 

A draught that mantles high, 
And seems to lift this earthly frame 

Above mortality. 
Away ! to me, a woman, bring 
Sweet waters from affection's spring." 

Joanna Baillie (1762-1851) wrote several volumes of 
plays, minor poems, and songs, among which are De Mont- 
fort, and Count Basil. 

Thomas Morton (1764-1838), in Speed the Plough, asks, 
" What will Mrs. Grundy say ? " 

Henry Kirke White (1785-1806), the author of a few 
poems of delicate sweetness, which for a time were made 
famous through the publication of his Remains, by Southey, 
soon after the death of the gifted writer. 



52 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Letitia E. Landon (1802-1838) wrote The Improvisatrice, 
Tfie Lost Pleiad, and a host of other lyrics, now seldom read. 

James and Horace Smith were the authors of the 
Rejected Addresses (1812), a collection of parodies of the 
style of the principal living poets. 

Writers of Fiction. 

Theodore Hook (1788-1842), the droll humorist, was the 
author of Man of Many Friends, All in the Wrong, The Widow 
and the Marquis, The Parson^ s Daughter, Gilbert Gurney, and 
its continuation Gurney Married. 

Mrs. Frances Trollope (1788-1863), the female Hook, 
was the author of The Domestic Manners of the Americans, 
The Vicar of Wrexhill, The Widow Barnahy, and The Ward 
of Thorpe Combe. 

Countess of Blessington (1790-1849), who added to 
her celebrity for literary ability and the possession of per- 
sonal charms the prestige of a high social position, was the 
author of many society novels and other works, such as 
Conversations ivith Lord Byron, Tour in the Netherlands, The 
Victims of Society, The Governess, The Idler in Italy, The Belles 
of a Season, Memoirs of a Femme de Chambre, etc. 

Countess D'Arblay (1752-1840), daughter and biog- 
rapher of the great historian of music, Dr. Burney, wrote 
Evelina, Edwin and Elgitha, a tragedy, Camilla, and The 
Wanderer, a tale for which she was paid £1500. 

Jane Austen (1775-1817), whose novels are models of 
perfection, wrote Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, 
Mansfield Park, and Emma. 

Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849), the author of the 
Parentis Assistant, Castle Rackrent, Patronage, Absentee, and 
numerous other works. 

Miss Mary Russell Mitford (1786-1855), one of the 
best writers of tales descriptive of English country life, was 
the author of Our Village, Belford Regis, Atherton, and the 
tragedies of Rienzi, The Foscari, and Julian. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE, 



53 



Captain Marryat (1792-1848), the writer of droll ma- 
rine characters, was the author of Peter Simple, Jacob Faith- 
ful, Midshipman Easy, The Pacha of Many Tales, Japhet in 
Search of a Father, The Phantom Ship, The King^s Ovm, The 
Narrative of Monsieur Violet, A Diary in America, Valerie, 
etc. 

William Godwin (1756-1836), who was married late 
in life to the noted Mary Wollstonecraft, wrote A Life of 
Chaucer, Caleb Williams (a novel), and a work on Political 
Justice. 

R. Plumer Ward (1762-1846) wrote Tremaine, or the 
Man of Refinement, De Vere, and De Clifford. 

Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818) was the author 

of The Monk, Bravo of Venice, Tales of Wonder, etc. 

John Gait (1779-1839), a prohfic Scotch writer of such 
novels as The Ayrshire Legatees, The Annals of the Parish, 
The EMail, The Last of the Lairds, Sir Andrew Wylie, and 
Laurie Todd. 

Historians. 

Henry Hallam (1778-1859) was the author of three in- 
valuable works: View of Europe during the Middle Ages, 
The Constitutional History of England, and An Introduction 
to the Literature of Europe. 

Sir William Napier (1785-1860) wrote The Life of Sir 
Charles Napier, The Conquest of the Scinde, and the Penin- 
sular War, the latter being the best military history in the 
English language. 

John Lingard (1771-1851) was the Eoman Catholic au- 
thor of a learned and valuable History of England, com- 
posed of thirteen volumes. 

John Pinkerton (1758-1825) wrote History of Scotland 
before the reign of Malcolm III., and under the Stuarts. 

James Mill (1773-1836) was the author of British India, 
5^ 



64 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Malcolm Laing (1762-1818) also wrote a History of 
Scotland from 1603 to 1707, 

Sharon Turner (1768-1847) wrote the History of the 
Anglo-Saxons, and George Chalmers (1742-1825) the 

Life of Queen Mary, Caledonia, etc. 

Miscellaneous Writers. 

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) was born in 
Warwick, England, on the 30th of January. The Imaginary 
Conversations alone established his fame. His collective 
works of prose and verse were published in 1846. A 
poet of great originality of power, whose writings are rich 
in scholarship; full of imagination, wit, and humor; cor- 
rect, concise, and pure in tone. He died in Florence, on 
September 17th. 

Sydney Smith (1771-1845), the most brilliant wit of 
his time, was Canon of St. Paul's, and the first editor of 
" The Edinburgh Eeview author of Letters on the Subject 
of the Catholics, by Peter Plymley ; Letters on the Pennsylvania 
Bonds, etc. 

Mrs. Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743-1825), for many 
years engaged with her husband in superintending a 
boarding-school for boys, wrote Early Lessons for Children, 
Hymns in Prose, a Life of Richardson, Eighteen Hundred and 
Eleven (a poem of a political character), A Poetical Epitaph 
to Mr. Wilberforce, several political pamphlets, etc. 

Isaac Disraeli (1766-1848), who, failing as a poet, con- 
fined himself to prose composition, was the author of such 
agreeable productions as Curiosities of Literature, Calamities 
of Authors, Quarrels of Authors, The Genius of Judaism, Flim 
Flams ; or the Life of my Uncle, etc. 

Richard Porson (1759-1808), the noted classical scholar, 
wrote translations of Euripides, Homer, jEschylus, and He' 
rodotus ; and Notes on Greek Poets. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



55 



Sir Bgerton Brydg-es (1762-1837) was the author of Cen- 

suria Literaria and Letters on the Genius of Byron. 

Lord Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850), the distinguished 
critic of "The Edinburgh Eeview," wrote Essays and Criti- 
cisms. 

William Hazlitt (1778-1830), author of The Characters 
of Shakespeare^ s Flays, Life of Napoleon, etc. 

Lord Henry Brougham (1778-1868) wrote Statesmen 
of George III., England under the House of Lancaster, and is 
noted as a statesman and orator. 

Dr. Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), f'le learned clergyman; 
Archibald Alison (1757-1838), Essay on Taste; John Foster 
(1770-1843), the able essayist; William Cobbett (1766- 
1835), author of works on America; George Combe (1788- 
1858), writer on phrenology and physiology ; Dugald Stew- 
art (1753-1828), the metaphysician ; Jeremy Bentham (1748- 
1832), writer on law and politics ; William Giflford (1756- 
1826), the satirist and reviewer ; Adam Clarke (1760-1832), 
the eminent divine ; Robert Hall (1764-1831), Baptist clergy- 
man ; Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832) ; Sir Humphry 
Davy (1778-1829) ; Sir John Herschel (1792-1871) ; and John 
Abercrombie (1781-1844), are noted writers of this age. 

Queries. — What writer was called the ^'Ettrick shepherd'^? 
Who wrote that powerful novel, Frankenstein? By whom was 
The Prophecy of Dante written? Have you read Trelawney's 
Byron? The inscription on Shelley's tomb is Cor Cordium ; 
what does it mean ? What two novels were written by Sheridan 
Knowles ? Who was the author of From Greenland,^ s Icy Moun- 
tains ? Why was Scott called the Wizard of the North " ? Who 
wrote Come, ye Disconsolate? Who created the historical novel? 
Ans. — Sir Walter Scott. Leigh Hunt wrote Sir Ralph Esher, a 
novel, and several others; what are they? When did Home's 
play of Douglas, the source of 

My name is Norval ; on the Grampian Hills," etc., 

appear? Have you read of Coleridge's contemplated Pantiso- 
cratic Community on the banks of the Susquehanna? Who 
wrote Epipsychidion, and what does it relate ? Who was the author 
of the Witch of Atlas ? What were the Rejected Addresses ? What 
writer was Professor of Poetry in Oxford University ? Who wrote 
a book to prove that Solomon was the author of the Iliad ? From 



56 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



what author is the quotation, Coming events cast their shadows 
before/' taken? How long was Scott writing the Waverley 
Novels f What extracts can you give from Southe}'' ? from 
Moore ? from Byron ? Who was the author of Confessions of an 
English Opium-Eater f Ans. — Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859), a 
man of wonderful genius and learning, and one of the most bril- 
liant writers of his age. Who wrote an Essay on Taste f 

The Victorian Age. 

184:0-1883. 

Alfred Tennyson (1810-1892) rose by slow degrees 
to full and complete recognition as worthily filling the 
post of poet-laureate. Born at Somersby, Lincolnshire, 
his life was an uneventful one. At the age of nine- 
teen he gained at the University of Cambridge the Chan- 
cellor's prize by his poem of Timbuctoo. With his brother 
Charles, who was at one time regarded as his supe- 
rior in verse delineation, he published, anonymously, a 
small volume in 1827, entitled Poems by Two Brothers. The 
death of his friend Hallam in 1833, at Vienna, furnished 
the text for In Memoriam. His poems are remarkable for 
brightness of fancy, delicacy of language, and melody of 
versification. The author of The Princess, Lochsley Hall, 
Maud, Enoch Arden, Idylls of the King, The May Queen, and 
many other poems. 

Selections : 

*' The rain had fallen ; the Poet arose — 

He pass'd by the town and out of the street ; 
A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, 

And waves of shadow went over the wheat, 
And he sat him down in a lonely place, 
And chanted a melody loud and sweet 
That made the wild swan pause in her cloud 
And the lark drop down at his feet." 

The Poet's Song, 

" Break, break, break, 

At the foot of thy crags, Sea ! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 
Will never come back to me." 



ENOLISH LITERATURE. 



57 



*' Flower in the crannied wall, 
I pluck you out of the crannies ; 
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower — but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is." 

" I hold it true, whate'er befall, 
I feel it when I sorrow most : 
'T is better to have loved and lost. 
Than never to have loved at all." 

In Memoriam. 

Robert Browning (1812-1889) was educated at the 
London University, but after his marriage resided on the 
Continent, and principally at Florence, Italy. His works 
are not ''popular," though full of genius, and appeal 
only to the highly cultured. Paracelsus, his first publi- 
cation, was succeeded by the Tragedy of Strafford. The 
Ring and the Book is regarded by critics as the greatest 
and most intensely interesting poem written since the days 
of Shakespeare. Other writings are the dramas Pippa 
Passes, A Blot on the ^Scutcheon, and Colomhe^s Birthday ; and 
the poems My Lost Duchess, How They Brought the Good News 
from Ghent to Aix, Eatisbon, Herve Riel, Agamemnon^ La 
Saisaiz, and Dramatic Idyls. 

Selections : 

" The gray sea, and the long, black land, 
And the yellow half moon large and low, 
And the startled little waves, that leap 
In fiery ringlets from their sleep, 
As I gain the cove with pushing prow. 
And quench its speed in the slushy sand." — Meeting. 

"So we were left galloping, Joris and I, 
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky : 
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh ; 
'Neath our feet broke the brittle, bright stubble like chaff ; 
Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white. 
And ' Gallop,' gasped loris, ' for Aix is in sight.' " 

How They Brought the Good News. 



58 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



Elizabeth Barrett Browning- (1809-1861), the wife 
of the poet, Eobert Browning, to whom she was married 
in 1846, received a fine classical education. She died in 
Italy. Art, life, politics, and religion were treated by her 
with great vigor of thought and simplicity of language. 
It was a peculiarity of her genius to manifest itself strongly 
in single paragraphs, and to give expression to ideas and 
truths in a line. Aurora Leigh is considered her master- 
piece. The other principal poems are Casa Guidi Windows, 
The Seraphim, A Drama of Exile, The Duchess May, Lady 
Geraldine^s Courtship, The Cry of the Children, Cowper^s 
Grave, Prometheus Bound (a translation), and He Giveth His 
Beloved Sleep. 

Selections : 

" Dead ! — one of them shot by the sea in the east, 
And one of them shot in the west by the sea. 
Dead ! — both my boys ! When you sit at the feast, 
And are wanting a great song for Italy free, 
Let none look at me ! 

" Yet I was a poetess only last year ; 

And good at my art, for a woman, men said. 
But this woman, this, who is agonized here. 

The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head 

For ever instead." — Mother and Poet. 

" Bather say, 
A sweet familiar nature, stealing in 
As a dog might, or child, to touch your hand, 
Or pluck your gown and humbly mind you so 
Of presence and affection, excellent 
For inner uses, from the things without." 

Aurora Leigh. 

Jean Ingelow (1830-1897) attained great and deserved 
popularity as a charming lyrist. Her poems, which chiefly 
relate to the affections, are very graceful and sweet, and 
she became, after the death of Mrs. Browning, the queen 
of English song. The best known work from lier pen is 
the Songs of Seven. Other writings which have bad a very 
large sale wherever the English language is spoken are Story 
of Doom (a narrative poem founded on the catastrophe of 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



59 



the Deluge), Songs of the Night Watches, Songs with Preludes, 
The Letter L, High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire, poems ; 
Off the Skelligs, and one or two other novels, in addition 
to several volumes of stories for children, of which Mopsa 
the Fairy is the most entertaining. 

Selections : 

" Heigh, ho ! daisies and buttercups, 

Fair yellow-daffodils, stately and tall ! 
A sunshiny world full of laughter and leisure, 

And fresh hearts unconscious of sorrow and thrall ! 
Send down ou th^ir pleasure smiles passing its measure, 
God that is over us all ! " 

Seven iimes Four. 

" Man dwells apart, though not alone. 
He walks among his peers unread ; 
The best of thoughts which he hath known, 
For lack of listeners are not said." 

Afternoon at a Parsonage. 

" Sing on ! we sing in glorious weather, 
Fall one step over the tiny strand ; 
So narrow, in sooth, that still together. 
On either brink we go hand in hand." 

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1843 ) is the 

youngest of living English poets who have achieved any 
distinction. He was educated first in France, and after- 
wards at Eton College and Oxford. Though master of all 
the resources of the English language in rhythmical and 
metrical effects, he is accused of undue sensuality in his 
writings. The Queen Mother, Rosamond, and Chastelard, his 
earliest works, were dramatic. Atalanta in Calydon gave 
him reputation. Other poems are Laiis Veneris (a collec- 
tion of lyrics which has been suppressed in England), 
Songs before Sunrise, A Song of Ltaly, and Bothwell. 

Selection : 

" fair green-girdled mother of mine, 

Sea, thou art clothed with the sun and the rain, 
Thy sweet, hard kisses are strong like wine. 

Thy large embraces are keen like pain ! 
Save me and hide me with all thy waves, 
Find me one grave of thy thousand graves, 



60 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Those pure, cold, populous graves of thine, 
Wrought without hand in a world without stain." 

Atalanta in Calydon. 

William Morris (1835-1896) was, next to Tennyson, 
the most successful narrative poet of his time. His 
writings are noted for their charming simplicity, and his 
imitation, to a certain degree, of the careless style of 
Chaucer. A member of the firm of Morris & Co., Lud- 
gate Hill, London, he found time in the midst of business 
cares to pen some exquisite verse. The author of The De- 
fence of Guenevre and Other Poems, The Life and Death of 
Jason, and The Earthly Paradise. 

Selection : 

" Speechless he stood, hut she now drew anear, 
Simple and sweet as she w^as wont to be, 
And once again her silver voice rang clear, 
Filling his soul with great felicity, 
And thus she spoke : ' Wilt thou not come to me, 
dear companion of my new found life ? 
For I am called thy lover and thy wife.' ""^ 

The Earthly Paradise. 

Arthur Hug^h Clough (1819-1861), a poet of much 
promise, was born in Liverpool, but resided with his 
father for several years at Charleston, South Carolina. He 
returned to England and completed his education at Ox- 
ford, where he was distinguished for his brilliant talents. 
The little poetry that he wrote is tinged with Byronic de- 
spondency, born of doubt. His Easter Day has always been 
greatly admired. 

Prose Writers. 

Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) is the 
most celebrated English essayist and historian of the nine- 
teenth century. As a descriptive poet his Lays of Ancient 
Rome, which are written in ballad style, full of life and 
vigor, have given him a permanent place in the literature 
of our language. The History of England, the most popular 



*A description of Pygmalion's meeting with the marble statue into 
which Venus had breathed life. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



61 



work of the kind ever written, is his masterpiece. The first 
and second volumes were published in 1849 ; the third and. 
fourth in 1855 ; and a fifth, made up from unfinished manu- 
script, in 1861 . He is the finest rhetorician, both as to diction 
and style, of all English authors, and his writings are no less 
remarkable for brilliancy of style than for the profound 
learning they display. For many years he was a member 
of Parliament, Secretary of War, Lord Eector of the Uni- 
versity of Glasgow, and held other offices which he filled 
with ability and distinction. Eaised to the peerage, under 
the title of Baron Macaulay, in 1857, he died suddenly 
two years later of an affection of the heart. His Essay on 
Milton was written at the age of twenty -five. 

Selections : - 

" Then out spake brave Horatius, the captain of the gate: 
' To every man upon this earth death cometh, soon or late. 
Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may ; 
I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play. ' 

" ' In yon strait path a thousand may well be stopped by three. 
Now, who will stand on either hand, and keep the bridge with 
me? ' 

Then out spake Spurius Lartius, a Ramnian proud was he, 
' Lo ! I will stand at thy right hand, and keep the bridge with 
thee.' 

" And out spake strong Herminius, of Titian blood was he, 
' I will abide on thy left side, and keep the bridge with thee.' 
* Horatius,' quoth the Consul, * as thou sayest, so let it be.' 
And straight against that great array forth went the daunt- 
less three." — Horatius at the Bridge. 

" It is by his poetry that Milton is best known ; and it is of 
his poetry that we wish first to speak. By the general suffrage 
of the civilized world, his place has been assigned among the 
greatest masters of the art. His detractors, however, though 
outvoted, have not been silenced. There are many critics, and 
some of great name, who contrive in the same breath to extol 
the poems and to decry the poet." — Essay on Milton. 

" And when those who have rivalled her [Athens] greatness 
shall have shared her fate ; when civilization and knowledge 
shall have fixed their abodes in distant continents ; when the 
sceptre shall have passed away from England ; when, perhaps, 
6 



62 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



travellers from distant regions shall in vain labor to decipher on 
some mouldering pedestal the name of our proudest chief; shall 
hear savage hymns chanted to some misshapen idol over the 
ruined dome of our proudest temple, and shall see a single naked 
fisherman wash his nets in the river of the ten thousand 
masts, — her influence and her glory will still survive, fresh in 
eternal youth, exempt from mutability and decay, immortal as 
the intellectual principle from which they derived their origin, 
and over which they exercise their control." 

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), a truly remarkable and 
original essayist, whose writings are of the vigorous, sledge- 
hammer style. A worshipper of power, either mental, 
moral, or physical, his heroes were ISTapoleon, Cromwell, 
Wellington, Frederick the Great, and Mohammed. The dis- 
jointed collection of short apostrophes to the varied ele- 
ments of French society about the time of the French 
Revolution he termed a history of that period. His princi- 
pal works are Sartor Resartus, Frederick the Great, The Letters 
and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, with Elucidations (a vivid 
picture of the man and the times). Hero Worship, Latter- 
Day Pamphlets, etc. 

Selections : 

" Good reader, if you be wise, search not for the secret of 
heroic ages, which have done great things in this earth, among 
their falsities, their greedy quackeries, and unheroisms. It 
never lies, and never will lie, there. Knaves and quacks — alas ! 
we know they abounded ; but the age was heroic, even because 
it had declared war to the death with these, and would have 
neither truce nor treaty with these ; and went forth, flame- 
crowned, as with bared sword, and called the Most High to wit- 
ness that it would not endure these. . . ." — CromwelVs Letters. 

•'Considering our present advanced state of culture, and how 
the torch of science has now been brandished and borne about, 
with more or less effect, for five thousand years and upwards ; how, 
in these times especially, not only the torch still burns, and perhaps 
more fiercely than ever, but innumerable rush-lights and sulphur 
matches, kindled thereat, are also glancing in every direction, 
so that not the smallest cranny or doghole in nature or art can 
remain unilluminated ; — it might strike the reflective mind with 
some surprise that hitherto little or nothing of a fundamental 
character, whether in the way of philosophy or history, has been 
written on the subject of Clothes." 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



63 



" Whoever has sixpence is sovereign over all men to the extent 
of that sixpence." 

Sir Edward Georg'e Bulwer-Lytton (1805-1873), 
with Thackeray and Dickens, formed the trio of great 
English novelists. At the age of fifteen Bulwer published 
Ismail, an Oriental Tale, and at twenty carried ofi" the Chan- 
cellor's prize by his poem Sculpture. A son of General 
Bulwer, he obtained the royal license in 1844 to enlarge 
his name to Bulwer-Lytton, the suffix being his mother's 
family name. In addition to his literary labors he served 
two terms in Parliament, besides holding the hono- 
rary office of Lord Eector of the University of Glas- 
gow. His novels are full of life and energy, smooth lan- 
guage, a rich exuberance of diction, skilfully arranged 
plots, and a portrayal principally of the upper classes of 
society. The author of Pelham, The Last Bays of Pompeii, 
Eienzi, The Caxtons, My Novel, Devereaux, Eugene Aram, What 
Will He Do with It, the dramas Richelieu and The Lady of 
Lyons, the New Timon and Other Poems, translations, po- 
litical pamphlets, etc. 

Selections : 

" I thought of thee, 
And passion taught me poesy, — of thee, 
And on the painter's canvas grew the life 
Of beauty ! — Art became a shadow 
Of the dear starlight of thy haunting eyes ! 
Men called me vain, — some, mad, — I heeded not ; 
But still toiled on, hoped on, — for it was sweet, 
If not to win, to feel more worthy thee ! " 

Claude Melnottes Apology and Defence. 

" Nay, dearest, nay, if thou wouldst have me paint 
The home to which, could love fullfil its prayer. 
This hand would lead thee, listen : a deep vale, 
Shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world. 
Near a clear lake, margined by fruits of gold 
And whispering myrtles ; glassing softest skies 
As cloudless, save with rare and roseate shadows, 
As I would have thy fate ! " 

A Lover s Dream of Home."^ 



* Both of these extracts are from The Lady of Lyons. 



64 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863), the 
keen satirist, artist as well as author, in inimitable wit and 
humor painted human nature exactly as he saw it. He 
depicted the shams and hypocrisies of fashionable society 
with the same ruthless pen that Dickens did the miseries 
of the lower classes. Born in India, he was educated at 
the Charter-House School, London, and at Cambridge. 
Having wasted a handsome fortune which he had in- 
herited, he dabbled in art, and finally decided upon litera- 
ture as a vocation. Many of his most brilliant sketches, 
such as The Booh of Snobs and Fitzboodle^s Confessions, ap- 
peared in fugitive form while a contributor to the period- 
icals of the day. His best-known works are Vanity Fair, 
Pendennis, Harry Esmond, The Newcomes, The Virginians, 
Lovel the Adventurer, Adventures of Philip, and his Lectures 
on the English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century, and on 
The Four Georges. 

Selections : 

'* If fun is good, truth is better, and love best of all.'* 

" We love to read — we may grow ever so old, but we love to 
read of them still— of love and beauty, of frankness and bravery 
and generosity. We hate hypocrites and cowards ; we long to 
defend oppressed innocence, and to soothe and succor gentle 
women and children ; we are glad when vice is foiled and rascals 
punished ; we lend a foot to kick Blifil down stairs ; and, as we 
attend the brave bridegroom to his wedding on the happy mar- 
riage-day, we ask the groomsman's privilege to salute the blush- 
ing cheek of Sophia." — Charity and Humor. 

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was born at Landport, 
England, and grew up under unfavorable circumstances, 
passing an unhappy childhood. He first studied law, and 
then having served as a newspaper reporter, during which 
time he wrote his inimitable sketches of Boz, became the 
leading novelist of the age in a realm occupied only by 
himself The sorrows, the little joys, and the stale en- 
joyments of the lower classes, he made his own, and by 
his magic pen electrified the common heart of humanity. 
A man of warm impulses, the victim of an indigent 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



65 



youth, and a lack of opportunities, he possessed some 
notable defects, but they were forgiven in a spirit of gener- 
osity when the world heard of his sudden death, the 
result of overwork. Martin Chuzzlewit and American Notes 
aroused the ire of our countrymen, though his peculiar 
views of republican institutions were so far forgotten that 
he received a cordial greeting and welcome wherever he 
appeared on his last lecturing tour in the United States in 
1869. The best of his novels are, probably, Pickwick 
Papers, The Bleak House, Domhey and Son, Our Mutual 
Friend, The Old Curiosity Shop, Great Expectations, A Tale of 
Two Cities, and his unfinished work. The Mystery of Edwin 
Drood — a powerful romance. 

Selections : 

"It isn't money makes the man; it's — I am really unequal 
with my 'umhle powers to express what it is, but it is n't money." 

David Copperjield. 

" ' Let us be beggars,' said the child, passing an arm around 
his neck. ' I have no fear but we shall have enough ; I am sure 
we shall. Let us walk through country places, and sleep in fields 
and under trees, and never think of money again, or anything 
that can make you sad, but rest at nights, and have the sun and 
wind upon our faces in the day, and thank God together ! Let 
us never set foot in dark rooms or melancholy houses any more, 
but wander up and down wherever we like to go ; and when 
you are tired, you shall stop to rest in the pleasantest place 
we can find, and I will go and beg for both.' " — Old Curiosity 
Shop. 

" Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green, 
That creepeth o'er ruins old ! 
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween, 

In his cell so lone and cold. 
Creeping where no life is seen, 
A rare old plant is the Ivy green." 

The Ivy Green in Pickwick. 

George Eliot (1820-1880), Mrs. Lewes-Cross, better 
known through her nom de plume than by her proper name, 
was born near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. A lin- 
guist and proficient musician, she contributed to various 
London periodicals in early life before she commenced 
6* E 



66 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



writing those works which established her fame as the 
greatest female novelist England has ever produced. The 
consort of George H. Lewes (1817-1878), the author of 
a History of Philosophy, Life of Goethe, and many other im- 
portant essays, criticisms, and biographies, she was married 
shortly after his death to Mr. J. N. Cross, but survived for 
a few months only this second union. Adam Bede, her first 
novel, was followed by Scenes of Clerical Life, Sila^ Marner, 
The Mill on the Floss, Romala, Felix Holt the Radical, The 
Spanish Gypsy, a drama, Middlemarch, Legend of Jubal, a 
poem, Daniel Deronda, Amos Barton, Impressions of Theo- 
phrastus Such, and How Lisa Loved the King, 

Selections : 

" Clearly there is a sort of writing which helps to keep the 
writer in a ridiculously contented ignorance ; raising in him con- 
tinually the sense of having delivered himself effectively, so that 
the acquirement of a more thorough knowledge seems as super- 
fluous as the purchase of costume for a past occasion." 

" This was the physiognomy of the drawing-room into which 
Lydgate was shown ; and there were three ladies to receive him, 
who were also old-fashioned, and of a faded but genuine respec- 
tability : Mrs. Farebrother, the vicar's white-haired mother, be- 
frilled and kerchiefed with dainty cleanliness, upright, quick- 
eyed, and still under seventy : Miss Noble, her sister, a tiny old 
lady of meeker aspect, with frills and kerchief decidedly more 
worn and mended , and Miss Winifred Farebrother, the vicar's 
elder sister, well-looking like himself, but nipped and subdued 
as single women are apt to be who spend their lives in uninter- 
rupted subjection to their elders. Lydgate had not expected to 
see so quaint a group : knowing simply that Mr. Farebrother 
was a bachelor, he had thought of being ushered into a snug- 
gery where the chief furniture would probably be books and 
collections of natural objects. The vicar himself seemed to wear 
rather a changed aspect, as most men do when acquaintances 
made elsewhere see them for the first time in their own homes." 

Middlemarch. 

John Ruskin (1819 ), the great art critic of his 

time, the founder of the so-called pre-Raphael school of 
art, was educated at Oxford, and is now Professor of Art in 
that University. Contradictory in style, his prose is limped 
verse, rich, strong, and sparkling. His influence upon lit- 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



67 



erature and art is similar to that exerted by Emerson upon 
American letters. Modern Painters, his first publication, 
was succeeded by The Seven Lamps of Architecture, Stones of 
Venice, Letters in Defence of the Pre-Raphaelites, Lectures on 
Civilization, Art, etc. 

Selections : 

" In some far-away and yet undreamt-of hour, I can even 
imagine that England may cast all thoughts of possessive wealth 
back to the barbaric nations among whom they first arose ; and 
that, while the sands of the Indus and adamant of Golconda 
may yet stiffen the housings of the charger, and flash from the 
turban of the slave, she, as a Christian mother, may at last at- 
tain to the virtues and the treasures of a heathen one, and be 
able to lead forth her sons, saying, ' These are my Jewels.' " 

" I say you have despised art ! ' What ! ' you again answer, 
* have we not art exhibitions miles long ? and do we not pay 
thousands of pounds for single pictures ? and have we not art 
schools and institutions more than ever nation had before ? ' " 

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was the author of The 
Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, The Variation of 
Animals and Plants, and the originator of the evolution 
theory epitomized in the familiar expression, the survival 
of the fittest." 

Selection : 

" There can hardly be a doubt that we are descended from 
barbarians .... [and] he who has seen a savage in his native 
land will not feel much shame if forced to acknowledge that the 
blood of some more humble creature flows in his veins. For my 
own part, I would as soon be descended from that heroic little 
monkey who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life 
of his keeper ; or from that old baboon who, descending from 
the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from 
a crowd of astonished dogs, — as from a savage who delights to 
torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practises infan- 
ticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no 
decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions." 

Miscellaneous Writers of this Age. 

Lord Lytton (1831 ), son of the great novelist, and 

now holding an important official position in India, has 



68 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



written Fables in Verse and Lucille, the latter noted for its 
easy and subtle humor, pathos, and genuine poetic merit. 

Selection : 

" He who seeks one thing in life, and but one, 
May hope to achieve it before life be done. 
But he who seeks all things wherever he goes, 
Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows, 
A harvest of barren regrets." — Lucille. 

Gerald Massey (1828 ), one of nature's poets, has 

written The Wee White Rose, The Bale Christahel, and other 
beautiful verses. 

Mrs. C. B. S. Norton (1808-1877), the granddaughter 
of E. B. Sheridan, was the author of many works, such as 
The Child of the Islands, Stuart of Dunleith, and Aunt Carry's 
Bcdlads. 

Adelaide A. Procter (1825-1864) wrote A Xeic Mother, 
One by One, and many other exquisite poems. 

Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield (1805-1880), the 
distinguished statesman, wrote Vivian Grey, The Young 
Duhe (the manuscript of which was disposed of for a 
very large sum at the sale of his effects), Henrietta Temple, 
and several other novels in his early manhood ; and, after 
1870, Lothair and Endymion. 

Anthony Trollope (1815-1882) was the author of fifty- 
nine novels, written in thirty-two years. The most import- 
ant of his works are He Knew He was Bight, Phineas Phinn, 
La Vendee, Can You Forgive Her:? The Last Chronicle of Bas- 
sett, Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson, The Eustace 
Diamonds, The American Senator, An Eye for an Eye, and 
Cousin Henry. 

Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) became famous through 
his Alton Locke, Hypatia, Westward Ho, Yeast, and works on 
geology. 

Selection : 

" Three fishers went sailing away to the west, 
Away to the west as the sun went down ; 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



69 



Each thought on the woman who loved him best, 

And the children stood watching them out of the town ; 
For men must work and women must weep, 
And there 's little to earn and many to keep, 
Though the harbor-bar be moaning." 

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) wrote many intensely in- 
teresting novels, such as The Black Bobe, Antonina; or, 
The Fall of Borne, No Name, Moonstone, The Captain's Last 
Love, Woman in White, Hide-and-Seek, Fallen Leaves, and 
JezeheVs Daughter. 

Charles Reade (1814-1884) displays a rare insight into 
human nature, with fine delineations of character, in the 
popular novels of Griffith Gaunt, Love Me Little, Love Me 
Long ; Very Hard Cash, The Jilt, White Lies, Peg Woffington, 
Put Yourself in His Place, A Woman-Hater, etc. 

Charles Lever (1806-1872) wrote the thrilling romances 
of Paul Gossletfs Confession, A Bent in a Cloud, Luttrell of 
Arran, Harry Lorrequer, Lord Kilgohhin, and Jack Hinton. 

Dinah Mulock Craik (1826-1887) wrote some charm- 
ing poems, and the moral novels of John Halifax, Gen- 
tleman; A Legacy, A Low Marriage, Miss Letty^s Experiences, 
Mistress and Maid, The Woman^s Kingdom, The Two Homes, 
A Life for a Life, The Self-Seer, etc. 

Selection : 

" No matter, no matter ! the path shines plain ; 
These pure snow-crystals will deaden pain ; 
Above, like stars in the deep' blue dark, 
Eyes that love us look down and mark. 

Let us go, let us go 
Whither heaven leads us in the path through the snow." 

Hugh Miller (1802-1856), a native of Scotland, the 
scientist and man of letters, wrote The Old Bed Sandstone, 
The Testimony of the Bocks, My Schools and Schoolmasters, 
Footprints of the Creator, and other interesting volumes. 

Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), who possessed the qual- 
ity of sympathy to a remarkable extent, was the daughter 
of an obscure clergyman — she married her father's assist- 



70 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



ant — and led a retired life, during which she wrote the 
excellent novels of Jane Eyre, Shirley, Vilette, and The Pro- 
fessor. 

Miss Agnes Strickland (1806-1874), the historian, was 

the author of Lives of the Queens of England, Queens of Scot- 
land, and Bachelor Kings of England. 

Samuel Lover (1797-1868) wrote the popular Irish 
novels of Bory O'More, Tom Crosbie, Handy Andy, and the 
songs Angels Whisper, Molly Baicn, and many others. 

Selection : 

" The South has its roses and bright skies of blue, 
But ours are niore sweet with love's own changeful hue — 
Half sunshine, half tears, like the girl I love best ; 
Oh ! what is the South to the beautiful West ? 
Then come to the West, and the rose on thy mouth, 
Will be sweeter to me than the flowers of the South." 

Bory O More. 

Louise de la Rame (1840 ),an Englishwoman of 

French extraction, from whose prolific pen have emanated 
such novels as Under Two Flags, Granville de Vigne; or, 
Held in Bondage, Tricotin, Cecil Castleniaine^s Gage, Pipisirello, 
A Village Commune, A Heroes Beward, and Lady Marahoufs 
Troubles, has lately written Wanda, Countess Von Szalras, full 
of the striking peculiarities which characterize her works. 

Mrs. Oliphant (1820 ) is the author of It Was a 

Lover and His Lass, ABose in June, A Beleaguered City, Carita, 
Young Musgrave, and He that Will Xot ivhen He May. 

Samuel Warren (1807-1877) wrote Ten Thousand a 
Year, an amusing novel, which illustrates Disraeli's saying 
that ^' every class of readers requires a book of its own." 

Gerald Grififin (1803-1840), the Irish novelist and poet, 
was the author of The Collegians, Holland Tide, and Gille 
Machree. 

Richard Monckton Milnes, Baron Houghton (1809 
1885), has written many beautiful poems, and the favorite 
song, TJie Brooks ide. 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



71 



Selection : 

*' I wander'd by the brookside, 

I wander'd by the mill, — 
I could not hear the brook flow, 

The noisy wheel was still ; 
There was no burr of grasshopper, 

Nor chirp of any bird ; 
But the beating of my own heart 

Was all the sound I heard. 

*' Fast silent tears were flowing, 

When something stood behind, — 
A hand was on my shoulder, 

I knew its touch was kind : 
It drew me nearer, — nearer, — 

We did not speak one word, 
For the beating of our own hearts 

Was all the sound we heard." 

R. C. Trench, D. D. (1807-1886), the theologian, in 
addition to various religious treatises, such as Notes on the 
Miracles, Lessons on the Proverbs, etc., has contributed to 
learning by English Past and Present, and On the Study of 
Words. 

Or. P. R. James (1801-1860), the historical novelist, 
famous for his ^' two solitary horsemen," wrote The Gentle- 
men of the Old School, One in a Thousand, A Whim and Its 
Consequences, Beauchamp, Henry of Guise, and Gowrie; or, 
The King^s Plot, etc. 

Among noted historians are Sir Archibald Alison 
(1792-1867), Life of Marlborough, and History of Europe from 
the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Accession of 
Napoleon; George Grote (1794-1871), History of Greece; 
Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868), History of Christianity; 
Rev. Charles Merivale (1808-1874), History of the Ro- 
mans; James Anthony Froude (1818-1894), History of 
England from the Fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth, and 
History of Ireland; and Oonnop Thirl wall, who wrote a 
History of Greece. 

Among scientific writers are the names of Sir Charles 
Lyell (1797-1875), Elements of Geology, Antiquity of Man, 



72 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 

etc. ; Herbert Spencer (1820 ), Sociology, Education, 

etc. ; John Tyndall (1820-1893), Heat a Mode of Motion, 
On Sound, etc. ; Thomas H. Huxley (1825 ), Com- 
parative Anatomy, Protoplasm, etc. ; and Whewell, Brew- 
ster, Buckle, Mrs. Somerville, and John Stuart 
Mill. 

Noted theological writers are Richard Whately* (1787- 

1863), Rhetoric, Political Economy, and New Testament Diffi- 
culties; Dean Stanley (1815-1881), Commentary on Corin- 
thians, Sinai and Palestine, etc.; C. H. Spurgeon (1834- 
1892), John Ploughman's Talks, etc. ; J. H. Newman (1801- 
1890), Loss and Gain, and Apologia pro Vita Sua; Digby, 
Alford, and many others. 

Professor Max Miiller (1823 ), a noted educa- 
tional writer, is the author of Chips from a German Work- 
shop, and Science of Language. 

Martin F. Tupper (1810-1889) is the author of Pro- 
verbial Philosophy, and other philosophical works. 

Selection: 

" The pen of a ready-writer, whereunto shall it be likened? 
Ask the scholar, he shall know — to the chains that bind a 
Proteus. 

Ask the poet, he shall say — to the sun, the lamp of heaven. 
Ask thy neighbor, he can answer — to the friend that telleth 
my thought, 

The merchant considereth it well, as a ship freighted with 
wares ; 

The divine holdeth it a miracle, giving utterance to the dumb. 
It fixeth, expoundeth, and disseminateth sentiment ; 
Chaining up a thought, clearing it of mystery, and sending 
it bright into the world." — The Pen. 

Thomas Hughes (1823-1896), whose stories of school 
life have endeared him to all school-boys, was the author of 
School-Days at Rugby, Tom Brown at Oxford, Life of King 
Alfred, and Memorials of a Brother. 



* Whately was the author of the saying, " Honesty is the best policy; 
but he who acts on that principle is not an honest man." 



ENGLISH LITERATURE. 



73 



Among the many popular novelists of this period may be 
named B. L. Farjeon, author of Bread and Cheese and 
KisseSf etc. ; Mrs. Henry Wood, author of East Lynne^ etc. ; 
Miss Annie Thomas, author of Blue Eyes and Golden Hair, 
etc. ; William Black, author of The Pupil ofAurelius ; Miss 
M. E. Braddon, author of Lost for Love and Lady Audley^s 
Secret, etc. ; Mrs. Annie Edwards, Miss Yonge, and G. A. 
Sala. 

General Queries.— Who was the author of the saying, " Honesty 
is the best policy ? How old was Macaulay when he wrote The 
Battle of Ivry ? Have you read Robert Buchanan's Drama of 
the Kings? Who was the Mrs. Frances Trollope who satirized 
American manners and customs in the works of Domestic Life 
of the Americans and The Refugee in America? What effect 
did the War of the Roses have upon literature ? What is meant 
by the allusion to the two solitary horsemen " of James ? What 
period was called " the age of learned ladies ? Define the Spen- 
serian stanza." Who wrote Worthies of England, and what is it? 
What do you know of the private life of Johnson, Addison, Bul- 
wer, and Dickens? Of what popular drama was Sheridan the 
author? Who was called ^'The Bard of the Tweed"? Are 
Ruskin's criticisms accepted by the lovers of art ? Who are the 
leading British orators ? What are the three positions given in 
John Locke's Civil Government? Upon what depends the success 
of literature ? Who wrote The Last of the Barons ? To what 
clear lake does Claude Melnotte refer when picturing to Pauline 
their home? What are pasquinades? By whom was Orlando 
Furioso written? Who was the father of English printing? 
Who was the most voluminous English poet? Ans. — Dryden. 
Why was Sir Thomas More executed ? What were the writings 
of Blind Harry ? Who were Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus ? 
What was the first English book printed? What poems are 
planned like The Decameron of Boccaccio? How many Hiads 
are there? What is the most curious book in the world? The 
skull of what noted author is now to be seen in an English 
museum ? How did Suckling die ? What coincidence do you ob- 
serve in the birth and death of Dryden and Cowper? Of what 
poems is Coventry Patmore (1823-1896) the author? Charles 
Mackay (1814-1889) wrote Voices from the Crowd and Baby 
Mine ; what are his prose works ? 
7 



Part II. 

American Literature. 

Introduction. 

THE Literature of America dates from the first settlement 
of the American Colonies. Though the books first 
in use in this country were printed in England, they treated 
of American topics and were intended for circulation as 
much among the colonists as in the mother country. The 
Bay Psalm Booh was the first book printed in America, in 
the year 1640 ; a printing-press having been set up but a 
short time before in Harvard College. The divisions of 
^ American Literature are represented by the four periods : 

1. The Colonial Age, 1608-1760. 
II. The Revolutionary Age, 1760-1800. 

III. The National Age, 1800-1860. 

IV. The Golden Age, 1860 to the Present Time. 

The Colonial Age. 

1608—1760. 

The general characteristics of the writings of this age 
are either historical — teeming with anecdote and fancy 

74 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



75 



— or controversial, the latter being the result of the differ- 
ences in belief as to the grade of religious freedom, among 
Roger Williams, John Eliot, John Cotton, Samuel Williard, 
Increase Mather, and others. 

The first productions written on American soil came from 
Virginia and are as follows : 

1. A True Relacion of Virginia, or Newes from Virginia, the 
letter written by Captain John Smith, and published in 
London, in 1608. 2. A Discourse of Virginia, written by Ed- 
ward Maria Wingfield, the first president, and first printed 
in 1860. 3. Historie of Travaile into Virginia, by William 
Strachey, secretary of the colony from 1610 to 1612, printed 
first in 1849. 4. The second or historical part of the Oxford 
Tract (Smith's map and description of the country being 
the first part), printed at Oxford, 1612. 5. Purchas' Pilgrim- 
age, by the Rev. Samuel Purchas, printed in 1613. 6. Good 
Newes, by Alexander Whitaker, published in 1613. 7. A 
True Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia, etc., by Ralph 
Hamor, late secretary in the colony, printed in 1615. The 
first purely literary work was, however, the translation of 
Ovid's Metamorphoses, by George Sandys, in 1621. 

Captain John Smith (1579-1631), the adventurer and 
discoverer, the sailor and soldier, besides writing the 
tracts mentioned above, was the author of The Generall His- 
torie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles.^ This 
work was published in London, in 1624. It is divided into 
" sixe bookes," and preceded by The Travels, Adventures and 
Observations of Captaine John Smith. The present reprint 
(Richmond, Va., 1819) is from the London edition of 1629. 
In this he quaintly tells how his life was thrice saved by 
the interest which his presence inspired in three prin- 
cesses ; t of his voyages by sea and land ; his single-handed 
encounter with three Turks whom he successively and suc- 
cessfully beheaded ; and many other wonderful tales, which 
the modern skeptic has seen fit to disbelieve. 



* The Bermudas. 

t Tragabigzanda, Callamata, and Pocahontas. 



76 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



Selections : 

" About the last of August [1619] came in a dutch man of 
warre that sold us twenty nigars." 

" To her unkinde brother, this kind ladie [Tragabigzanda] 
writ so much for his good usage, that he halfe suspected, as much 
as she intended ; for shee told him, hee should there but sojourne 
to learne the language, and what it was to be a Turke, till time 
made her Master of herselfe." 

Rev. John Cotton (1585-1682) wrote Milh for Babes, 
w^hich was one of the pamphlets composing the famous 
New England Primer. His views of civil government are 
set forth in the work Meat for Strong Men. 

Roger Williams (1606-1683), denied the religious lib- 
erty he craved, sought the shelter of the red man's wigwam, 
and in Rhode Island founded a refuge and home for those 
similarly persecuted. He w^rote George Fox Digged out of 
his Burrows, The Bloody Tenet of Persecution, and other 
works and pamphlets. 

Cotton Mather (1663-1728), w-ho was once described as 
distinguished for — 

" Care to guide his flocks, and feed his lambs 
By words, works, prayers, psalms, alms, and anagrams," 

graduated at Harvard with distinction w^hen only fifteen 
years old. Believing that devils and angels w^ere as real 
as his own family, he justified, wdth fanatical Puritanic 
zeal, the execution of the poor innocents at Salem. He 
was the author of many works, among w^hich are the 
Memorable Providences relating to Witchcraft, The Wonders 
of the Invisible World,^ etc., etc. 

Selections : 

"Mr. Cotton, Mr. Hooker, and Mr. Stone, which glorious tri- 
umvirate coming together made the poor people in the wilder- 
ness, at their coming, to say, that the God of heaven had supplied 



* Robert Calef, a Boston merchant, wrote a pungent, caustic reply to 
this in a work entitled More Woiiders of the Invisible World, a copy of 
which was burned in the college-3'ard of Harvard by order of the in- 
censed president of that seat of learning. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



77 



them with what would in some sort answer their then great ne- 
cessities : Cotton for their clothing, Hooker for their fishing^ and 
Stone for their building.'' 

" You are young and have the world before you ; stoop as 
you go through it, and you will miss many a hard thump." 

Mrs. Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672), the daughter of 
one and wife of another governor of Massachusetts, was 
the first American poetess. She has been called the Tenth 
Muse. In 1640 she published a volume of poems, com- 
piled and original (with a copious title), which excited 
great admiration in England. 

Selection : 

"And oh, ye high-flown quills that soar the skies, 

And even with your prey still catch your praise, 
If e'er you deign these lowly lines to prize, 

Give thyme or parsley wreath ; I ask no bays ; 
This mean and unrefined ore of mine 
Will make your glistering gold but more to shine." 

Contemporaries. 

Nathaniel Ward was the author of a work bearing the 

strange title of The Simple Cobbler of Agawam, in America, 
Willing to Help Mend his Native Country, lamentably tattered, 
both in the Upper-leather and the Sole, with all the honest stitches 
he can take, etc. 

Governor Bradford wrote A History of the Plymouth 
Colony, from the formation of their church, in 1602, to 1647. 

Governor Winslow was the author of several works, 
the one of present interest being his Good News from New 
England, a true relation of things very remarkable at the Plan- 
tation of Plymouth* 

Captain Benjamin Church (1639-1718) wrote an im- 
portant historical document entitled The Entertaining His- 
tory of King Philip's War. 

William Stith gives an entertaining account of the 
visit of Pocahontas to England in his w^ork The History of 
Virginia. 
7* 



78 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705) wrote the popular 
poems Meat out of the Eater and The Day of Doom. 

Peter Folger (1618-1690) was noted for his single work 
called A Looking- Glass for the Times, 

Rev. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), the greatest 
metaphysician that America has produced, WTote An In- 
quiry into the Freedom of the Will, The Doctrine of Original 
Sin, etc. 

Queries. — Who was John Woolman ? What writer is called " the 
apostle to the*Indians " ? Who wrote llagnalia Christi Ameri- 
cana ? For what was John Davenport famous ? Have you read the 
witty poem entitled Father Abbey's Will? What writer gives an 
account of the visit of Pocahontas to England ? What poetess has 
been called the Tenth Muse " ? What were the writings of Brad- 
ford and Winslow ? Who was the author of New England's Pros- 
pect f What work was written by Captain John Smith in 1630? 
Who was the author of The Golden Fleece f Ans.Sir William 
Vaughan. James Logan (1674-1751) made what translation? 
What were the writings of James Blair, Golden, Keimer, Dickin- 
son, and Aquila Bose ? 

The Revolutionary Age. 

1760-1800. 

This era is fraught with the struggle for independence 
and the rights of man, and its literature is therefore, to a 
great extent, of a political character, and to some degree a 
repetition of the pamphlet warfare indulged in by the 
early colonial writers. It furnishes us with the gleanings 
of oratory — that golden literature of a nation — and the 
"solid matter" emanating from the great minds that 
adorned this age, not only of our literature but also of the 
world's history. Among the noted prose writers are the 
names of Franklin, Jefferson, Otis, Hamilton, Madison, 
Dwight, and many others. 

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) rose from the humble 
bench of a tallow-chandler's shop to become the greatest 
diplomatist of the eighteenth century, and was alike 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



79 



equally famous in politics, science, and literature. His 
writings fill ten octavo volumes, and consist of his Autobi- 
ography, his Correspondence, Moral, Political, and Philosoph- 
ical Essays, papers on Electricity and Scientific Subjects, the 
maxims of Richard Saunders, Philomath (the professed au- 
thor of Poor Richards Almanac), and numerous short pieces, 
such as the Dialogue with the Gout, and The Whistle, which 
were very popular with the reading public of fifty years 
ago. Born in Boston, he died in Philadelphia, the city of 
his adoption, which has in many ways honored her illus- 
trious dead. 
Selections : 

Apothegms culled from Poor Richard's Almanac. 1. "If you 
would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write 
things worth reading or do things worth writing." 2. " Fools 
make feasts, and wise men eat them." 3. " Three removes are 
as bad as a fire." 4. " He that by the plough would thrive, him- 
self must either hold or drive." 5. " The sleeping fox catches no 
poultry." 6. " @-od helps them that help themselves." 7. "If you 
would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some ; for 
he who goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing." 

James Otis (1725-1783), who was called the Patrick 
Henry of New England, wrote many books of a political 
character, though he published, among other works, a 
treatise on Latin Prosody. 

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the scholar and states- 
man, drafted the Declaration of Independence, was the 
author of Notes on Virginia, Letters, and many other papers 
of political importance. By a singular coincidence he and 
John Adams expired on the same day.* His Decalogue — 
the observance of which is said to have been his daily guide 
in life— from which selections are given below, is worthy 
of comparison with the Proverbs of Solomon. 

Selections : 

1. Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. 4. 
Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap ; it will be 
dear to you. 5. Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and 



* July 4, 1826— the fiftieth anniversary of American Independence. 



80 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



cold. 8. How mucti pain have cost us the evils that have never 
happened ! 10. When angry, count ten before you speak ; if very 
angry, a hundred. 

Contemporaries. 

John Adams, G-eorg-e Washington (his writings fill 
twelve octavo volumes), James Madison, James Mon- 
roe, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton (the ablest 
of them all) were the other joolitical writers of this age. 
Of the eighty-five essays contained in the Federalist, Ham- 
ilton wrote fifty-one, Madison twenty-nine, and Jay five. 
Washington's Farewell Address was written with the co-op- 
eration of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay. 

John Witherspoon (1722-1794), a native of Scotland, 
was the sixth president of Princeton College and one of the 
signers of the Declaration of Independence. Among his 
various writings are Lectures on Moral Philosophy, Letters on 
Marriage, Sermons, Speeches in Congress, and An Inquiry into 
the Nature and Effect of the Stage, 

Thomas Paine (1736-1809), an Englishman by birth, 
came to America in 1774, and aided the struggling colonies 
especially by his pamphlet of Common Sense. He was the au- 
thor of The Crisis, The Rights of Man, and The Age of Reason.* 

Dr. Timothy Dwight (1752-1817), one of the illus- 
trious presidents of Yale College, was author of Theology 
Explained and Defended, and the poems Columbia and Green- 
field Rill. His Triumph of Infidelity he dedicated to Voltaire. 

Selection : 

" Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, — 
The queen of the world and the child of the skies, — 



* Partly written while in a French prison. The following epitaph was 
composed by an admirer (?) of the infidel patriot philosopher : 
Tom Paine for the Devil is surely a match ; 
In leaving Old England he cheated Jack Ketch ; 
In France (the first time such a thing had been seen), 
He cheated the watchful and sharp guillotine ; 
And at last, to the sorrow of all the beholders, 
He marched out of life with his head on his shoulders. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



81 



Thy genius commands thee ; with rapture behold, 
While ages on ages thy splendors unfold." 

Henry Lee (1756-1808) wrote Memoirs of the War in the 
Southern Department of the United States, and was the author 
of the phrase. First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts 
of his fellow-citizens" (not countrymen), which occurs in 
his Funeral Oration on the Death of Washington. 

Lindley Murray (1745-1826), the philologist, wrote an 
English Grammar, The English Reader with Introduction and 
Sequel, and some religious treatises. 

John James Audubon (1780-1851), and Alexander 
Wilson (1766-1813), were celebrated ornithologists. The 
former wrote The Birds of America, and, in connection with 
his sons, published the Quadrupeds of America. 

Dr. David Ramsay (1749-1815), the historian, was the 
author of a History of the United States and a History of South 
Carolina, and, like Chief Justice Marshall (1755-1835), 
wrote a Life of Washington. 

Wm. BUery Channing, D.D. (1780-1842), was the au- 
thor of Self' Culture, Evidences of Christianity, and Sermons. 

Judge Kent (1763-1847) was a noted legal writer, the 
author of Commentaries on American Law. 

Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) was the first 
American novelist, and the author of Wieland, Ormond, Ar- 
thur Mervyn (containing scenes descriptive of the yellow- 
fever year of 1793), Jane Talbot, Sky-Walk; or,The Man Un- 
knoivn to Himself, etc. 

Poets of this Age. 

Philip Freneau (1752-1832) was of French extraction, 
and in satiric verse aided the promulgation of principles 
opposed to royalty. 

Selection : 

" Without your showers 
I breed no flowers, 
F 



82 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Each field a barren waste appears ; 

If you don't weep, 

My blossoms sleep, 
They take such pleasure in your tears. 

Thus to repose 

All nature goes ; 
Month after month must find its doom ; 

Time on the wing 

May ends the Spring, 
And Summer frolics o'er her tomb." 



Judge Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791), who held 
many offices of trust and honor, was the author of numerous 
contributions to literature, such as The Typographical Mode 
of Conducting a Quarrel, On Modern Learning, and Ambi- 
guity of the English Language. Besides the satirical poems 
of A Camp Ballad, The New Roof, etc.j he wrote the humor- 
ous ballad of The Battle of the Kegs, 

Selection : 



The rebel dales, the rebel vales, 

With rebel trees surrounded ; 
Tho distant wood, the hills and floods, 

With rebel echoes sounded. 

*' The fish below swam to and fro, 
Attack'd from every quarter; 
Why sure» thought they, the de'il's to pay 
'Mongst folks above the water. 

*' The kegs, 'tis said, tho' strongly made 
Of rebel staves and hoops, sir, 
Could not oppose their powerful foes, 
The conq'ering British troops, sir. 

" From morn to night these men of might 
Displayed amazing courage ; 
And when the sun was fairly down, 



Judge Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842), son of the pre- 
ceding, was the author of Hail Columbia. 



May to April. 




The Battle of the Kegs. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE, 



83 



John Trumbull (1750-1831) wrote the poem McFingal, 
and an educational satire entitled The Progress of Dulness. 

Selection : 

*' No man e'er felt the halter draw 
With good opinion of the law." — McFingal. 

Jonathan Sewall (1748-1808) was the writer of a vol- 
ume of poems, and the patriotic song War and Washington. 

Robert Dinsmoor (1757-1836), commonly known as 
the " Eustic Bard," published several poems, among which 
was the humorous Skip's Last Advice, written in the Scotch 
dialect. 

Robert Treat Paine (1773-1811) wrote the patriotic 
poem of Adams and Liberty. 

John Dickinson (1732-1808) was the author of the 
famous lines taken from The Liberty Song : 

" Then join in hands, brave Americans all, 
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall." 

- Joel Barlow (1755-1812) wrote Hasty Pudding and the 
American epic, The Columbiad, 

Other Writers. 

Mrs. Susanna Rowson (1761-1824) was the author of 

the famous novel of Charlotte Temple, and many other 
works, such as Tlie Fille de Chambre, Slaves in Algiers, an 
Opera; The French Patriot, a Comedy ; etc. 

John Bartram (1701-1777), "the father of American 
Botany," published his Observations, in which line of writing 
he was followed by his son, William Bartram (1739- 
1823), in a work entitled Travels through North and South 
Carolina, etc. 

Elias Boudinot (1740-1821) was the author of a pam- 
phlet, The Age of Revelation, a reply to Paine ; and the Star 
in the West, a work intended to prove that the American 
Indians are the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. 



84 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



William Dunlap (1766-1839) was noted for his sketches 
of American theatrical life in such works as Thirty Years 
Ago, Life of George Frederick Cooke, etc. 

Mrs. Hannah Adams (1755-1831), the first American 
woman to devote herself to authorship, was the Historian 
of the Jews and Reviewer of the Christian Sects."^ 

Queries. — Can you recite the preamble to the Declaration of In- 
dependence ? Have you read the Letters of John Adams and his 
wife Abigail Adams? What two historians wrote a Life of Wash- 
ington f How was Paine saved from the guillotine? What are 
the writings of Brackenridge ? Who wrote a work in the style of 
Hudibrasf By whom was Washington's Farewell Address writ- 
ten? What was the celebrated pun of Mather Byles, D.D. ? Who 
was the author of The Fille de Chamhre ? Of what noted phrase was 
Henry Lee the author? Who was called the ''Eustic Bard"? 
Name the first writer on English philology. Who was the first 
American to make literature a profession? How was the literature 
of the colonial period influenced ? What noted writer walked along 
the streets of Philadelphia eating a penny roll of bread? What 
two writers died in 1831 ? 



The National Age. 

1800—1860. 

The opening of the nineteenth century was the begin- 
ning of a new era in American literature. The stability 
of a republican form of government having been estab- 
lished, writers began to tread the more flowery paths of 
letters, and we find the graceful verse of Halleck, Drake, 
and Allston succeeded by the strong rhythm and flowing 
cadence of Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, and Holmes, with 
the historical researches of an Irving, a Bancroft, and a 
Motley. 

American literature began to be recognized as distinctively 
a product of its own soil, possessing a freshness and vigor 
that soon removed the tinge of English traits and afiectation 



* Copied from the inscription on her monument. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE, 



85 



for which our countrymen could have no sympathy. Many 
of the authors mentioned have lived beyond this age, but 
their fame was established within the dates specified by 
this period. 

Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820), a poet of bril- 
liant promise, was the author of the patriotic poem. The 
American Flag, but it is in the imagery of the exquisite 
fairy tale, The Culprit Fay, that his genius is pre-eminent. 
The latter was written in three days, on a wager laid be- 
tween Cooper, Halleck, and himself. 
Selection : 

" They come from beds of lichen green, 
They creep from the mullen's velvet screen ; 
Some on the backs of beetles fly 

From the silver tops of moon-touch'd trees, 
Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high, 

And rock'd about in the evening breeze ; 
Some from the hum-bird's downy nest — 

They had driven him out by elfin power. 
And, pillow'd on plumes of his rainbow breast, 

Had slumber'd there till the charmed hour; 
Some had lain in the scoop of the rock, 

With glittering ising-stars inlaid ; 
And some had open'd the four o'clock, 



Charles Fenno Hoffman (1806-1884), the American 
Moore, the writer of convivial, amatory, and descriptive 
poetry. Winter in the West, etc., was the author of the beau- 
tiful Lines on the Hudson River (the scene of The Culprit 
Fay), from which the following is a 
Selection : 

" Tell me — where'er thy silver bark be steering. 
By bright Italian or soft Persian lands, 
Or o'er those island-studded seas careering, 

Whose pearl-charged waves dissolve on coral strands ; 
Tell, if thou visitest, thou heavenly rover, 
A lovelier scene than this the wide world over." 
8 



And now they throng the moonlight glade, 

Above — below — on every side, 
Their little minim forms array' d 

In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride ! " 




The Culprit Fay. 



86 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867), " who took to rhym- 
ing as soon as he learned to write," and who became 
famous before 1830, as he wrote little or nothing after that 
year. His immortal lyric, Marco Bozzaris, alone w^on him 
literary celebrity. Of his thirty -two poems, the best known 
are the tribute to his brother-poet and friend, Drake, 
Lines on Burns, Red Jacket, Twilight, and Alnwick Castle. 

Selections : 

" Green be the turf above thee, 
Friend of my better days ! 
None knew thee but to love thee, 
None named thee but to praise." 

Lines on the death of Drake. 

*' One of the few, the immortal names, 
That were not b'orn to die." 

Marco Bozzaris. 

" His is that language of the heart 

In which the answering heart would speak, 
Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, 
Or the smile light the cheek. 

" And his that music, to whose tone 

The common pulse of man keeps time, 
In cot or castle's mirth or moan. 

In cold or sunny clime." — Lines on Burns. 

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), the Wordsworth 
of America, a native of Cummington, Massachusetts, re- 
sided for over half a century in New York city, where 
he held the position of editor of the Evening Post. A 
lover of nature, the reverence he felt for her is seen in 
strongly-marked lines throughout his writings. Thanatop- 
sis * was written and delivered by the author, in his nine- 
teenth year, at a college commencement. His finest poems 
are To a Waterfowl, Death of the Flowers, Forest Hymn, Song 
of the Stars, The Planting of the Apple-T)^ee, Waiting by the 
Gate, Our Country's Call, and The Flood of Years, the last 



* It is said he refused to allow any corrections to be made by the fac- 
ulty (as is common on such occasions), and read the poem without any 
one having seen the manuscript. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



87 



being written at the age of eighty-two. In 1871 he com- 
pleted, after six years' labor, a translation of the Iliad and 
Odyssey. 

Selections : 

" But 'neath yon crimson tree 

Lover to listening maid might breathe hia flame, 
Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, 

Her blush of maiden shame." — Autumn Woods. 

" Soon rested those who fought ; but thou 
Who minglest in the harder strife 
For truths which men receive not now, 
Thy warfare only ends with life. 

*' A friendless warfare ! lingering long 
Through weary day and weary year ; 
A wild and many weapon' d throng 

Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear. 

** Truth crushed to earth, shall rise again ; 
The eternal years of God are hers ; 
But error, wounded, writhes in pain, 
And dies among her worshippers." 

The Battle-Fidd. 

" So live that, when thy summons comes to join 
The innumerable caravan that moves 
To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, — 
Thou go, not like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust ; approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." 

Thanatopsis. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), our 
loved and revered poet-laureate, the first American author 
to be honored with a memorial in Westminster Abbey, 
was born in Portland, Maine, in an old square wooden 
house upon the edge of the sea." Graduating from Bow- 
doin College in 1825, he was, four years afterwards, elected 
Professor of Modern Languages and Literature in his Alma 
Mater, which position he relinquished to accept a similar 
one in Harvard in 1835. His duties as a " teacher " were 



88 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



varied by occasional travels to Europe, and his writings are 
thus enriched with legendary, historic, and biographical 
notes. From 1836 he resided in the ''Craigie House," 
which was purchased for him by his father-in-law in 1843, 
the year in which he married Miss Appleton. Mary Stover 
Potter, his first wife, who died suddenly at Eotterdam 
four years after their marriage, was a daughter of Judge 
Potter of Portland, very lovely in person and rarely gifted 
in mind. 

It may be a consolation to poets who receive little for 
their verses to know that the Psalm of Life first appeared in 
the Knickerbocker J and was never paid for. 

Of his leading works are Hyperion, a Romance; The Span- 
ish Student, Kavanagh, a Tale ; The Golden Legend, Tales of a 
Wayside Inn, Outre Mer, The Building of the Ship, The Day 
is Done, Morituri Salutamus, Hiawatha, Miles Standish, Flower 
de Dace, New England Tragedies, Wreck of the Hesperus, Paul 
Revere^ s Ride, Children's Hour, Village Blacksmith, The Divine 
Tragedy, Translation of Dante's Divina Commedia, and Michael 
Angelo, a Drama, 

Selections : 

" Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers. 
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by 
the wayside, 

Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade 
of her tresses ! 

Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the 
meadows, 

When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide 
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah ! fair in sooth was the maiden." 

Evangeline. 

" Spake full well, in language quaint and olden, 
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, 
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, 
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine. 

" Stars they are, wherein we read our history, 
As astrologers and seers of eld ; 
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, 
Like the burning stars, which they beheld." 

Voices of the Night. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



89 



" Better be dead and forgotten than living in shame and dis- 
honor." — Miles Standish. 

** There falls upon the house a sudden gloom, 
A shadow on those features fair and thin, 
And softly, from the hush'd and darken'd room, 
Two angels issue where but one goes in." 

Two Angels. 

" Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceed- 
ingly small ; 

Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness 
grinds He all." 
(Retribution — from the Sinngedichte of Friedrich von Logan. 

*' I remember the black wharves and the slips, 

And the sea-tides tossing free, 
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 

And the magic of the sea." — My Lost Youth. 

** Turn, turn, my wheel ! Turn round and round 
Without a pause, without a sound, 

To speed the flying world away. 
This clay, well mixed with marl and sand, 
Follows the motion of my hand, 
For some must follow, and some command. 

Though all are made of clay." — Keramos. 

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), the bachelor 
poet, was born on a farm in the neighborhood of Haver- 
hill, Mass., but after 1840 he resided at Amesbury. His 
education w^as obtained in the common schools of his 
native village, supplemented by a two years' course at 
an academy. Early engaged in editorial labors, he for 
more than fifty years devoted himself to literature. With- 
out the scholarship or polish obtained by travel, he pos- 
sessed a more native poetic instinct than Longfellow. The 
earlier writings of this Quaker author are almost wholly 
tinged with liberty-lo^dng strains, and pleas against all 
forms of oppression. Among his prose works are Literary 
Recreations, The Stranger m Lowell, and Old Portraits and Mod* 
em Sketches. His most popular poems are Barbara Frietchie, 



8* 



* See George Herbert, p. 24. 



90 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Snow-Bound, Cobbler Keezar^s Vision, Maud Mtdler, A Tent on 
the Beach, Cassandra Southwick, Among the Hills, The Bridal 
of Pennacook, Skipper Ireson's Ride, A Summer Pilgrimage, and 
Voices of Freedom. 

Selections : 

" * I 'm sorry that I spelt the word ; 
I hate to go above you, 
Because ' — the brown eyes lower fell — 
' Because, you see, I love you ! ' 

" Still memory to a gray -haired man 
That sweet child-face is showing ; 
Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave 
Have forty years been growing ! 

" He lives to learn, in life's hard school, 
How few who pass above him 
Lament their triumph and his loss 
Like her — ^because they love him." 

In School-Days. 

" Captain Smith gave to the promontory, now called Cape 
Ann, the name of Tragabigzanda, in memory of his young and 
beautiful mistress of that name, who, while he was a captain at 
Constantinople, like Desdemona, ' loved him for the dangers he 
had passed.' " 

" Ri vermouth Rocks are fair to sec. 
By dawn or sunset shone acro^^, 
When the ebb of the sea has left them free, 
To dry their fringes of gold-green moss : 
For there the river comes winding down 

From salt sea-meadows and uplands brown, 
And waves on the outer rocks a foam, 
Shout to the waters, ' Welcome home ! ' " 

The Wreck of Rivermouth. 

" And so beside the Silent Sea 
I wait the mufiled oar ; 
No harm from Him can come to me 
On ocean or on shore. 

" I know not where His islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air ; 
I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond His love and care." 

The EternoX Goodness. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



91 



Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) was born in 
Cambridge, Mass., and graduated at Harvard in 1829, 
where for many years he held the position of Park- 
man Professor of Anatomy and Physiology. Distin- 
guished alike in poetry and prose, he is held in as high 
estimation by the English people as he is by his own coun- 
trymen. His writings teem with wit, sentiment, patriot- 
ism, satire, humor, and poetic beauty. They consist prin- 
cipally of a series of papers under the title of The Autocrat 
of the Breakfast Table, and a second set published under the 
name of The Professor at the Breakfast Table. These were 
followed by The Professor^ ^ Story , or Elsie Venner ; a Romance 
of Destiny ; his last work being An After-Breakfast Talk. 
Among his many popular poems are Old Ironsides, My Aunt, 
The Last Leaf, The Stethoscope Song, Terpsichore, The Sweet 
Little Man, The Balance of Illusions, The One-Horse Shay, The 
Boys, and Astrsea. 

Selections : 

" Day hath put on his jacket, and around 
His burning bosom buttoned it with stars." 

Evening — by a Tailor. 

" Her hands are cold ; her face is white ; 
No more her pulses come and go ; 
Her eyes are shut to life and light ; 
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, 
And lay her where the violets blow. 

*' But not beneath a graven stone, 
To plead for tears with alien eyes ; 
A slender cross of wood alone 
Shall say, that here a maiden lies 
In peace beneath the peaceful skies." 

Under the Violets. 

" Give us men ! A time like this demands 
Great hearts, strong arms, true faith, and willing hands. 
Men, whom the lust of office does not kill ; 
Men, whom the spoils of office can not buy ; 
Men who possess opinions and a will ; 
Men who have honor, men who will not lie ; 
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds, 
Their large professions and their little deeds, 



92 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 

Wrangle in selfish strife — lo ! Freedom weeps, 
Wrong rules the land, and waiting justice sleeps." 

Give Us Men. 

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), also a native of 
Cambridge, graduated at Harvard at the age of nineteen, 
and was for more than twenty years Professor of Belles- 
Lettres in that College. In 1877 he w^as appointed Minister 
to Spain by President Hayes. In 1880 he was appointed 
Minister to Great Britain. As critic, essayist, poet, and 
prose writer, he alike won distinction and gained a perma- 
nent place among the list of American authors, and as lec- 
turer and the first editor of the Atlantic Monthly he displayed 
the great versatility of talent and power for which he is 
justly famous. His first volume of poems, entitled A Yearns 
Life, was published in 1841. Some of his principal waitings 
are The Vision of Sir Launfal, The Biglow Papers, The First 
Snowfall, A Glance Behind the Curtain, A Table for Critics, 
Among my Books, My Study Windows, Under the Willows, and 
other Poems; Commemoration Ode, etc. 

Selections : 

"Wonderful to him that has eyes to see it rightly, is the 
newspaper. Behold the whole huge earth sent to me hebdom- 
adally in a brown paper wrapper." 

"And what is so rare as a day in June? 

Then' if ever come perfect days ; 
Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 
And over it softly her warm ear lays." 

Sir Launfal. 

" Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, 
In the strife of Truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side. 
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom 
or blight, 

Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the 
right, 

And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that 
light." — The Present Crisis. 

" I '11 return ye good fer evil 

Much ez we frail mortals can, 
But I wun't go help the Devil 
Makin' man the cus o' man ; 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



93 



Call me coward, call me traiter, 
Jest az suits your mean idees, — 

Here I stand a tyrant-hater, 

An' the friend o' God an' Peace." 

The Biglow Papers, 

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), "the poet of morbid 
anatomy," was born in Boston and died in Baltimore, 
where, after life's fitful fever, he sleeps well. The victim 
of melancholia, a morbid disposition, and an insatiate 
thirst for intoxicants, in rebellion against a world that 
misunderstood the man, and has attempted to falsify the 
reputation of one with whom " poetry was not a purpose 
but a passion,"* his life displayed some irregularities, 
though it is on record by one,t who from business associa- 
tion had every opportunity of estimating his character, 
that he was " a winning and well-mannered gentleman." 
His first literary production, Al Aaraaf and Minor Poems, 
was unsuccessful. This was followed by The Narrative of 
Arthur Gordon Payne, and the weird and powerful ro- 
mances, that bear the impress of a master-mind, of The 
Mystery of Mary Roget, The Murders of the Rue Morgue, The 
Gold Bug, The Fall of the House of Usher, and the poems 
The Raven, The Bells, Ulalume, The Haunted Palace, and 
Annabel Lee, 

Selections : 

" Young flowers were whispering in melody 
To happy flowers that night — and tree to tree ; 
Fountains were gushing music as they fell 
In many a star-lit grove or moon-lit dell ; 
Yet silence came upon material things — 
Fair flowers, bright waterfalls, and angel wings — 
And sound alone that from the spirit sprang 
Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang." 

Al Aaraaf, 

" Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, 
And tempted her out of her gloom — 
And conquered her scruples and gloom ; 
And we passed to the end of the vista, 



* His own words. 



fN. P. V^illis. 



94 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



But were stopped by the door of a tomb — 
By the door of a legended tomb ; 
And I said, ' What is written, sweet sister, 
On the door of this legended tomb ? ' 
She replied, ' Ulalume — Ulalume — 
'T is the vault of thy lost Ulalume ! ' " — Ulalume. 

N. P. Willis (1806-1867) was bom in Portland, Maine, 
removed to Boston at the age of six, and graduated at 
Yale College when twenty-one years old. A writer of 
poems in his youth, he was successively interested in the 
publication of the American Monthly Magazine and the New 
York Mirror, and, with George P. Morris, issued the Home 
Journal, which was a marked success. His writings consist 
largely of descriptions of his travels in various parts of 
America and Europe, and reflect the phase of society to 
which he was accustomed. Among his many works are 
Hurry-graphs, Pencillings by the Way, People I have Met, Out- 
Doors at Idlewild, Famous Places and Persons, The Rag-Bag, 
Summer Cruise on the Mediterranean, Fun-Jottings, Two Ways 
of Dying for a Husband, The Healing of the Daughter of 
Jairus, Parnassus, The Death of Absalom, etc. 

Selection : 

" Stoop to my window, thou beautiful dove ! 
Thy daily visits have touched my love. 
I watch thy coming, and list the note 
That stirs so loud in thy mellow throat, 

And my joy is high 
To catch the glance of thy gentle eye." 

To a City Pigeon. 

John Howard Payne (1792-1852), the dramatist and 
poet, author of some noble and lasting literary work in his 
day — one of the grandest of heroic tragedies now played 
(Brutus) being the offspring of his pen — his fame rests almost 
entirely upon the simple melody and unaffected verse of a 
chance ballad. Home, Sweet Home.* He w^as born in New 
York city, but resided during childhood in Boston. His 



*The original manuscript of this poem is said to be in the posses- 
sion of Miss Mary Harden, of Athens, Georgia. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



95 



first appearance on the stage was in the former city, and 
for several years after he was both in America and in Eng- 
land recognized as an actor of advancing reputation, and 
as an author of merit. He experienced a series of trials 
all through life and had few joys. At the time of his death 
he represented the United States as Consul at Tunis. The 
remains of this unfortunate child of genius were brought 
to Washington, March 24, 1883, and on June 9, the ninety- 
first anniversary of the poet's birth, were buried with ap- 
propriate ceremonies in Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown, 
D. C. He was the author of The Maid and the Magpie, Ac- 
cusation, Brutus, Therese, or the Orphan of Geneva, and Clari, 
the Maid of Milan. 

Other Poets of this Age. 

Francis Scott Key (1779-1843) wrote minor poems and 

The Star-Spangled Banner. 

Washington Allston (1779-1843) published a volume 
of his own poems and a novel entitled Monaldi, illustrative 
of Italian life. 

Clement C. Moore (1779-1863) was the author of the fa- 
vorite poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas (" 'Twas the night be- 
fore Christmas," etc.). 

Samuel Woodworth (1785-1842) wrote the beautiful 
song of the Old Oaken Bucket. 

Richard Henry Dana (1787-1879) wrote The Buccaneer, 
and was associated with Bryant and Allston in the publica- 
tion of the Idle Man. 

Charles Sprague (1791-1875), the banker poet, wrote 
Shakespearian Ode, Fifty Years Ago, Curiosity, Charles James, 
The Winged Worshippers, and many other popular poems. 

Selection : 

" Life's but a leaf, adroitly rolled, 
And Time 's the wasting breath, 
That, late or early, we behold, 
Gives all to dusty death. 



96 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



" From beggar's frieze to monarch's robe, 
One common doom is passed ; 
Sweet Nature's works, tne swelling globe, 
Must all burn out at last." — To My Cigar. 

Coates Kinney (1826 ) was the author of the beauti- 
ful refrain, Rain on the Roof, and Keuka, an American Le- 
gend; Other Poems, etc. 

Mrs. Maria Brooks (1795-1845) is chiefly remembered 
by her poem of Zophiel ; or the Bride of Seven. 

John Pierpont (1785-1866) wrote the long poem of The 
Airs of Palestine, and the lyrics E Pluribus Unum, Passing 
Away, My Child, and The Battle-Field. 

James Gates Percival (1795-1856), the scholarly poet, 
was the author of To Seneca Lake and Coral Grove. 

Gr. P. Morris (1802-1864), a noted song writer, wrote 
Woodman, Spare that Tree ; My Mother'' s Bible, Near the Lake 
where drooped the Willow, Long Time Ago, The Maid of Sax- 
ony (an opera), and the drama, Briar Cliff. 

Alfred B. Street (1811-1882) contested with Cooper in 
his descriptive power of nature in the verse of The Gray For- 
est Eagle, Lost Hunter, Frontenac, and Forest Pictures in the 
Adirondacks. 

William Qilmore Simms (1806-1870), the poet of 
South Carolina, wrote Atalantis, The Last Fields of the Biloxi, 
The Syren of Tselica, The Tryst of Acayma, Francesca Da Ri- 
mini, and many others, besides a series of wddely read nov- 
els and romances, such as The Scout, The Partisan, Guy Riv- 
ers, The Yemasee, The Black Riders of the Congaree, etc. 

Selection : 

" Hush'd was our breathing, stay'd the lifted oar, 
Our spirits rapt, our souls no longer free, 
While the boat drifting softly to the shore, 
Brought us within the shades of Accabee ; — 
* Ah ! ' sudden cried the maid, 
In the dim light afraid, 
* 'T is here the ghost still walks of the old Yemasee.' " 

Albert Pike (1809 ), famous for his connection with 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



97 



the Southern Confederacy during the Civil War, and his 
prominence in Masonic circles, was the author of a beauti- 
ful collection of poems published under the name of Nugae. 

Margaret Fuller, Marchioness d'Ossoli (1810-1850), 
wrote Summer on the Lakes, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 
and numerous criticisms and essays. 

Elizabeth H. Whittier (1816-1848), a sister of the poet, 
was the author of several beautiful poems, as The Dream of 
Argyle, King Volmer and Elsie, The Wedding Veil, John Quincy 
Adams, Dr. Kane in Cuba, Lady Franklin, etc. 

Selection : 

" Earthly arms no more uphold him 

On his prison's stony floor ; 
Waiting death in his last slumber, 

Lies the doomed MacCallum Moore. 
And he dreams a dream of boyhood; 

Rise again his heathery hills, 
Sound again the hound's long baying, 

Cry of moor-fowl, laugh of rills." 

Mrs. Hannah F. Gould (1789-1865) wrote The Snow- 
Flake, The Frost, A Name in the Sand. Mrs. Frances Sargent 
Osgood (1812-1850), The Floral Offering, Labor, To My Pen. 
Mrs. Amelia B. Welby (1811-1851), The Rainbow. Mary S. 

B. Shindler (1810 ), Passing Under the Rod, The Southern 

Harp, Forecastle Tom. 

Prose Writers. 

Washington Irving' (1783-1859), The American Gold- 
smith, was born in New York city and died at his residence, 
"Sunnyside," on the Hudson. Twenty-three years of his 
life were spent abroad ; four of them as Minister to Spain.^ 



* Irving once told inimitably the salient points of a little adventure 
he had in company v^ith the French and Russian ambassadors and Sir 
David Wilkie, when they were travelling in the most unostentatious way 
on the Mediterranean shores of Spain. Wilkie was amusing himself 
with making sketches of the coast, of old Moorish castles and ruined 
forts, when they were suddenly surrounded and arrested as spies, and 
taken before a little village alcalde, who very fiercely and pomppusly 
demanded a knowledge of them and their business. The Russian am- 
9 G 



98 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



In 1807, in connection with J. K. Paulding, and his brother 
William Irving,^ he began and continued through twenty 
numbers the publication of Salmagundi; or, the Whim- 
Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq., and others. 
Irving's life was one of the brightest ever led by an author. 
He discovered his genius at an early age ; w^as graciously 
welcomed by his countrymen ; answered the literary con- 
dition of the period when he appeared ; won easily, and as 
easily kept, a distinguished place in the republic of letters, 
and was generously rewarded for his work. Living in 
learned ease, surrounded by friends, master of himself and 
his time, he was a prosperous gentleman. His principal 
w^orks are KnickerbocJcer^s History of New York, Sketch Book 
(containing Hip Van Winkle, Legend of Sleepy Hollow, etc), 
Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveller, Life and Voyages of 
Christopher Columbus, Voyages and Discoveries of the Compan- 
ions of Columbus, Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada, Wol- 
ferfs Boost, Life of Goldsmith, and Life of Washington. 

Selections : 

" But what, Muse ! was the rage of Peter Stuyvesant, when 



bassador replied that he had the honor to represent his majesty the Czar 
of Russia at the court of Spain. The outraged functionary burst out in 
a paroxysm of rage and invective against this supposed attempt to de- 
ceive and ridicule him, which was increased when the French ambas- 
sador made a similar reply. But turning to Mr. Irving, who then looked 
like an Englishman, he said, "You, of course, will claim to represent 
her majesty the Queen of Great Britain !*' He was considerably sobered 
by Mr. Irving's reply, "No, I represent the United States of America;" 
and became still more thoughtful when Wilkie only claimed to be one 
of the court painters to Queen Victoria. By request, they quickly pro- 
duced documents and cards to prove their identity, when the worthy 
little fellow fell into great terror from the fear that they would forward 
complaints against him. They earnestly assured him that he had only 
done his duty toward such suspicious-looking persons as they were ; 
that they were merely travelling for relaxation and pleasure after their 
hard duties at Madrid, and that he had furnished them with materials 
for many a pleasant after-thought. They invited him to dinner, and 
made so much of him that the report is probably true that he was left 
under the table by their good cheer. 

* The Irving brothers, Washington, William, and Peter, were all en- 
gaged in literary pursuits. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



99 



from afar he saw his army giving way. . . . Wherever he went, 
the enemy shrank before him. One aimed a blow full at his 
heart ; but the protecting power which watches over the great 
and the good turned aside the hostile blade and directed it to a 
side pocket, where reposed an enormous iron tobacco-box, en- 
dowed, like the shield of Achilles, with supernatural powers, 
doubtless from bearing the portrait of the blessed St. Nicholas. 
Peter Stuyvesant turned like an angry bear upon the foe, and, 
seizing him, as he fled, by an immeasurable queue, ' Ah, vile cat- 
erpillar,' roared he, ' here 's what shall make worm's meat of 
thee ! ' So saying, he whirled his sword and dealt a blow that 
would have decapitated the varlet, but that the pitying steel 
struck short and shaved the queue forever from his crown." 

Knickerbocker. 

" Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember 
the Kaatskill Mountains. They are a dismembered branch of 
the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of 
the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the 
surrounding country. Every change of season, every change 
of weather, indeed every hour of the day, produces some change 
in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains ; and they 
are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect ba- 
rometers. ... I have observed that he [Rip Van Winkle] was a 
simple, good-natured man ; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor, 
and an obedient, henpecked husband. Indeed, to the latter cir- 
cumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained 
him such universal popularity ; for those men are most apt to be 
obsequious and conciliating abroad who are under the discipline 
of shrews at home." — Hip Van Winkle. 

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), the first Ameri- 
can author to obtain a reputation beyond his country and 
language, was born at Burlington, New Jersey, and died at 
Cooperstown, New York. Entering Yale, a boyish frolic 
caused his suspension in three years, and, instead of grad- 
uating in the class of 1806, he went on a voyage to the 
Mediterranean as a sailor before the mast. Two years 
later he was appointed a midshipman in the navy, and 
held this position for two years more, when he married 
Miss De Lancy (January 1, 1811), and settled down to a 
domestic and literary life. His minute knowledge of both 
forest and sea life he utilized in many of his novels. The 
intolerant criticism of American manners and customs 
made him one of the best-hated men of letters since the 



100 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



days of Swift, and rendered gloomy the literary labors of 
one whose home life was very happy, as his marriage had 
been a singularly fortunate and felicitous union. Precau- 
tion, his first novel, was issued in 1821, and from that time 
there was a constant succession of books till the publication 
of his last work, The Ways of the Hour, in 1850. Beside the 
Naval History of the United States, Lives of American Naval 
Officers, and several books of travel, he wrote more than 
thirty novels, the more popular ones being The Spy, The 
Pilot, Last of the Mohicans, The Water Witch, The Pathfinder, 
Mercedes of Castile, The Deer slayer, Wyandotte, Afloat and 
Ashore, The Red Skins, Jack Tier, Red Rover, and The Pio- 
neer. 

Selection : 

" ' Hurrah ! ' shouted the unconscious Barnstable from the 
edge of the quarterdeck, where, attended by a few men, he was 
driving all before him. ' Revenge — Long Tom and victory ! ' 
' We have them ! ' exclaimed the Englishman ; ' handle your 
pikes ! we have them between two fires.' The battle would 
probably have terminated very differently from what previous 
circumstances had indicated, had not a wild-looking figure ap- 
peared in the cutter's channels at that moment issuing from the 
sea and gaining the deck at the same instant. It was Long 
Tom, with his iron visage rendered fierce by his previous discom- 
fiture, and his grizzled locks drenched with the briny element 
from which he had risen, looking like Keptune with his trident. 
Without speaking he poised his harpoon, and with a powerful 
effort he pinned the unfortunate Englishman to the mast of his 
own vessel." — The Pilot. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), the great Ameri- 
can romancer, was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on the 
fourth of July. Graduating from Bowdoin College in 1825, 
he was for three years an officer in the Salem Custom- 
House, and was appointed by President Pierce consul at 
Liverpool. His writings are reflections of his rare genius 
and his sensitive nature. Dr. Grimshaw^s Secret, a posthu- 
mous novel — long overlooked but recently discovered — is 
one of his most powerful and characteristic productions. 
The scenes are laid on both sides of the Atlantic, the story 
turning upon the claims of an American heir to ancestral 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



101 



English estates. Various short studies and sketches pre- 
viously published he collected, in 1837, under the title of 
The Twice- Told Tales. He also wrote Mosses from an Old 
Manse, and the novels. The Scarlet Letter, The House of the 
Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun, and 
The Ancestral Footstep. 

Selections : 

" The human spirit does not perish of a single wound, nor 
exhaust itself in a single trial of life." 

" ' Septimius ! Septimius ! ' cried Aunt Keziah, looking into 
the room, ' in heaven's name, are you going to sit here to-day 
and the red-coats coming to burn the house over our heads ? 
Must I sweep you out with the broomstick ? For shame, boy ! 



nephew; ' well, I am not a fighting man.' ' Certainly they are 
coming. They have sacked Lexington, and slain the people, and 
burnt the meeting-house. That concerns even the parsons, and 
you reckon yourself among them. Go out, go out, I say, and 
learn the news ! ' " — The Alarm at Concord. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), the sage of Con- 
cord, was born in Boston, graduated at Harvard in 1821, 
taught for a short time, ministered thought to a congrega- 
tion for three years in his native city, and then retired to 
the classic town where he lived till the end, only varying 
the studious retirement of his life by lecturing in this 
country and abroad. His writings are observant and spec- 
ulative ; display a quaintness of language and a philo- 
sophic taste and power that has made a vivid impression 
upon the literature of the nineteenth century. Among 
his many volumes of prose and poetry are Nature, Essays, 
Representative Men, English Traits, Conduct of Life, Aspects of 
Culture, Society and Solitude, Parnassus, Volume of Selected 
Poems, Letters and Social Aims, Lectures, and Xhe Superlative. 

Selections : 



for shame ! ' 'Are they 




then. Aunt Keziah ? ' asked her 



" By the wide bridge that arched the flood, 
Their flag to April breeze unfurled ; 
Here once the embattled farmers stood. 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 



9* 



102 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



The foe long since in silence slept — 

Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ; 
And time the ruined bridge has swept 

Down the dark stream which seaward creeps." 

The Concord Hymn. 

" The hand that rounded Peter's dome, 
And groined the aisles of Christian Eome, 
Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 
Himself from God he could not free ; 
He builded better than he knew, 
The conscious stone to beauty grew." 

The Problem. 

** The law of the table is beauty — a respect to the common 
soul of all the guests. Everything is unseasonable which is 
private to two or three, or any portion of the company. Tact 
never violates for a moment this law ; never intrudes the orders 
of the house, the vices of the absent, or a tariff of expenses, or 
professional privacies ; as we say, we never ' talk shop ' before 
company. Lovers abstain from caresses, and haters from insults, 
whilst they sit in one parlor with common friends." — Socml Aims. 

" Wherever there is power there is age. Don't be deceived by 
dimples and curls. 1 tell you that babe is a thousand years 
old."— 0^^^ Age. 

Dr. J. G. Holland (1819-1881) was one of the most popu- 
lar of American poets, though his poems were not kindly 
received by the critics. The principal ones are Bitter- 
Sweet, Kathrina, and Mistress of the Manse. As a novelist he 
was more successful in the writing of Gold-Foil, Arthur 
Bonnicastle, Seven Oaks, Miss Gilbert's Career, Plain Talks, The 
Marble Prophecy, etc. 

Selections : 

" Oh ! emptiness 1 Life, what art thou but a lie. 

Which I greeted and honored with hopefullest trust. 
Bah ! the beautiful apples that tempted my eye, 
Break dead on my tongue into ashes and dust." 

Kathrina. 

" There is hardly a language that does not contain a proverb 
which says in words, or effect, ' Trust thyself only, and another 
shall not betray thee '—a proverb that bears the very singe and 
scent of hell." — Gold-Foil. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



103 



John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887), the American Hood, 
a native of Vermont, after graduating at Middlebury Col- 
lege in 1839, began the practice of law, but soon turned 
his attention to literature, and his writings are resplendent 
with keen wit and brilliant travesties. His more popular 
works are The Flying Dutchman; or, The Wrath of Herr von 
Stoppelnoze, The Rape of the Loch, Comic Miseries, Pyramus 
and Thisbe, Orpheus and Eurydice, The Briefless Barrister, 
Guneopathy, and The Proud Miss MacBride. 

Selection : 

" There 's a game much in fashion, I think it's called Euchre, 
Though I 've never played it for pleasure or lucre, 
In which, when the cards are in certain conditions, 
The players appear to have changed their positions, 
And one of them cries in a confident tone, 
' I think I might venture to go it alone.' 

" In battle or business, whatever the game, 
In law or in love it is ever the same ; 
In the struggle for power, or scrabble for pelf, 
Let this be your motto : ' Rely on yourself! ' 
For whether the prize be a ribbon or throne, 
The victor is he who can ' go it alone.' " — Go It Alone. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1812-1896) was born at Litch- 
field, Connecticut. She was the daughter of Dr. Lyman 
Beecher, a distinguished New England clergyman, from 
whom she inherited a fervent hatred of slavery. Her fame 
was established by the publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin (in 
1852), the most widely-read book ever written in America. 
Her other stories are Dred,"^ a Tale of the Dismal Sivamp, 
The Minister's Wooing, The Pearl of Orr's Island, Agnes of Sor- 
rento, Little Foxes, We and Our Neighbors, Pink and White 
Tyranny, My Wife and I, Old Toiun Folks, Poganuc People, etc. 

George Bancroft (1800-1891), who filled many pub- 
lic offices under the general government, was born at 
Worcester, Massachusetts, graduated at Harvard at the age 
of seventeen, studied for two years at Gottingen, Germany, 



* This is now published under ttie title of Nina Gordon. 



104 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



and received the polish of foreign travel. His great work 
was The History of the United States, from the Discovery of the 
American Continent 
Selection : 

" The voice of the world had whispered to Columhus that the 
world is one ; and as he went toward the west, ploughing a 
wave which no European keel had entered, it was his high pur- 
pose not merely to open new paths to islands or to continents, 
but to bring together the ends of the earth, and join all nations 
in commerce and spiritual life." 

William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859), the historian 
who achieved distinction despite the loss of eyesight, was 
born in Salem, Massachusetts, and died suddenly of 
paralysis in Boston, while engaged in preparing the third 
volume of The History of the Reign of Philip the Second. 
His works are precise, artistic, and reliable, and consist of 
The Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, Conquest of Mexico, and 
Conquest of Peru. 

John Lathrop Motley (1814-1877), a writer in graceful 
and graphic description, was born at Dorchester, Massa- 
chusetts. There are strong resemblances in his life to that 
of Bancroft's, as he similarly graduated at Harvard when 
seventeen years old, studied a year each at the universi- 
ties of Gottingen and Berlin, and served in diplomatic 
capacity as both minister to Austria and England. The 
author in early life of two unsuccessful romances, Morton's 
Hope and Merry Mount, he wrote The Rise of the Dutch Re- 
public, The History of the United Netherlands, and The Life 
and Death of John Barnevald. 

Contemporaries. 

George Ticknor (1791-1871), who was Longfellow's 
predecessor in Harvard, wrote Life of Lafayette, History of 
Spanish Literature, and Life of Prescott. 

William Wirt (1772-1834), noted for forensic ability 
and eloquence, wrote Letters ^ the British Spy and lAfe of 
Patrick Henry. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



105 



Judge Story (1779-1845) was the author of Law of Part- 
nership, Commentaries on the Law of Bailments, On the Consti- 
tution of the United States. 

Edward Everett (1794-1865), "the polished orator," 
pubhshed a Defence of Christianity and Eulogy on Washing- 
ton. His Orations and Speeches are one hundred and eighty- 
six in number. 

Selection : 

" Education is a better safeguard of hberty than a standing 
army. If we retrench the wages of the school-master, we must 
raise those of the recruiting sergeant." 

Daniel Webster (1782-1852), the intellectual giant of 
his age, whose prose serves as a model, has left six volumes 
of Speeches, Forensic Arguments, and Papers. 

Selection : 

" I know the morning, — I am acquainted with it, and I love 
it. I love it, fresh and sweet as it is, a daily new creation, 
breaking forth and calhng all that have life, and breath, and 
being to new adoration, new enjoyments, and new gratitude." 

Thomas H. Benton (1782-1858) wrote Thirty Years' 
View. 

Louis J. R. Ag-assiz (1807-1873), the eminent natural- 
ist, was the author of the popular scientific wTitings,Geolog- 
ical Sketches, The Structure of Animal Life, etc. 

Edwin P. Whipple (1819-1886) was one of the most 
critical essayists of the century. 

Henry D. Thoreau (1817-1862), the forest hermit of 
Walden pond, wrote Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada, The 
Maine Woods, Wild Flowers, and other reflections. 

Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) was the author of a 
variety of works, such as Eyes and Ears, Star Papers, Nor- 
wood (a novel), and several volumes of Sermons. 

James Kirke Paulding (1778-1860) wrote the humor- 
ous Quarrel of Squire Bull an^ his Son Jonathan. 

John P. Kennedy (1795-1870), w^ho, like Paulding, was 



106 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



Secretary of the Navy, was the author of several novels de- 
picting Southern Life of fifty years ago. 

John Neal (1793-1876), the Nestor of American maga- 
zinists, wrote many novels, poems, and plays. His last 
work is entitled Wandering Recollections of a Somewhat Busy 
Life. 

Frederick S. Cozzens (1818-1869) was the witty author 

of The Sparrowgrass Papers and Acadia ; or, a Sojourn among 
the Blue Noses. 

John B. Jones (1810-1866) wrote many popular books, 
including A Rebel War ClerFs Diary. 

Richard P. Smith (1799-1854) wrote the Tragedy of 
Caius Marius for Edwin Forrest. 

Robert T. Conrad (1805-1858) was the author of two 
successful tragedies, Conrad of Naples and Aylmere. 

Daniel P. Thompson (1795-1868) wrote The Green 
Mountain Boys, The Rangers; or, The Tory^s Daughter, and 
Locke Amsden ; or. The School-Master — which gives a picture 
of his own pedagogical experiences while boarding 
around.'' 

Lydia H. Sigourney (1791-1865) completed the Letters 
of Life, her fiftieth volume, just previous to her death. 

Selection : 

"And ye blest laborers in this humble sphere, 
To deeds of saint-like charity inclined. 
Who, from your cells of meditation dear, 

Come forth to guide the weak untutored mind 
You ask no payment, save one smile refined 
Of grateful love — one tear of contrite pain ! 
Meekly ye forfeit to your mission kind 



A Sabbath without end, mid yon celestial plain." 

The Sunday-School. 

General D. H. Strother (1816-1888), the well-known 

Porte Crayon of Harper^ s Magazine, wrote The Dutchman and 
the Bear, The Blackwater Chronicle, Pompey^s Philosophy, etc. 
Rufus W. Griswold (1815-1857), the great compiler, 




Be your gain 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



107 



wrote The Female Writers of America, The Poets and Poetry of 
America, etc., and edited the works of Poe, with a memoir. 

Dr. Elisha Kent Kane (1820-1857), who gained a 
world-wide celebrity by his heroic attempts to discover the 
fate of Sir John Franklin, wrote Arctic Explorations. 

Horace Mann (1796-1859), a distinguished educator, was 
the author of Report of an Educational Tour in Germany, 
Great Britain, etc., and A Few Thoughts for a Young Man on 
Entering Life. 

Duyckinck Brothers (E. A., 1816-1873; L., 1823- 
1863) published, in 1856, an Encyclopedia of American Liter- 
ature. 

S. Austin Allibone (1816 — ) wrote a Dictionary of 
Authors, Prose Quotations, Dictionary of Poetical Quotations, 
and Great Authors of All Ages. 

Mrs. Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880), a noted author 
for more than fifty years, w^rote her first work, Hohomok, in 
six weeks. She was also the writer of Biography of Good 
Wives, Lives, A Romance of the Republic, The Rebels, a Tale of 
the Revolution, etc. 

Caroline Lee Hentz (1804-1856) wrote, among many 
other works, De Lam; or, the Moorish Bride, a tragedy, 
which won a competitive prize of $500. 

Mrs. Frances M. (Berry) Whitaker (1812-1852) was 
the author of a series of papers printed under the title of 
The Widow Bedott. 

Benson J. Lossing (1813 ) wrote the interesting 

historical volumes of Field-Booh of the Revolution, History of 
the War of 1812, Pictorial History of the Civil War, and is the 
author of school histories and other works. 

Richard Hildreth (1807-1865) was the author of an ac- 
curate History of the United States, and Japan as it Was and Is. 

Jared Sparks (1794-1866), the biographer and histo- 
rian, wrote Lives of Washington, Franklin, and Gouverneur 
Morris, 



108 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



T. S. Arthur (1809-1885) has aided the cause of virtue 
and temperance by the publication of Ten Nights in a Bar- 
Room, Lights and Shadows of Real Life, Maiden Wife and 
Mother, and many other popular books. 

Noted theological writers are Albert Barnes (1798-1870), 
Commentaries; E. H. Chapin (1814-1880), Hours of Com- 
munion; C. P. Mcllvaine (1798-1873), Evidences of Christi- 
anity ; Theodore Parker (1810-1860) ; Addison Alexander 
(1809-1860) ; John England (1686-1842) ; and Archbishop 
Hughes (1797-1864), with numerous others. 

Queries. — For what is Maria J. Mcintosh noted ? Who has been 
called the American Hood ? In what work will you find allusion 
to Ichabod Crane ? What incident began Cooper's literary career ? 
Where did Hawthorne die? What are the writings of Theodore 

Fay (1807 ) and James A. Hillhouse (1789-1841) ? Who wrote 

The Widow Bedottf Drake's birth and death coincide with what 
English poet? What coincidence do you observe between Key and 
Allston ? Have you read W^hittier's Hazel Blossoms and The Ex- 
iles Who wrote A MS. Found in a Bottle? Under what cir- 
cumstances was the Star-Spangled Banner written ? How many 
authors have written a Life of Washington f Who has written of 
his experiences as a school-teacher? How many authors have been 
Secretary of the Navy? Who was the Nestor of American maga- 
zinists, and what is meant by this expression? What selections 
can you give from the writings of Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, 
and Holmes? What does the Sketch Book contain? How many 
volumes did Mrs. Sigourney write? Who is the author of Heaven 
is as Near by Water as by Land ? Who wrote over the pseudonym 
of Timothy Titcomb? What are the Twice-Told Tales of Haw- 
thorne ? Who wrote an account of their travels in Brazil ? 



>>@<oo 



The Golden Age. 

I860 to the Preset tt Time. 

This era, continuous with its predecessor, bringing the 
" sweet fruition " of the labors and lives of Bryant, Long- 
fellow, Emerson, Whittier, and Holmes, has also introduced 
several original features of a literary transition ; first, by the 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



109 



soul-stirring, patriotic songs, melodies, and odes ; the popular 
war-novels (pregnant with celestial fire), animated by the 
four years' struggle between brothers of one soil and coun- 
try ; and, later, by a class of dialect writers, in both prose 
and poetry, with quaint, bold language and an almost trop- 
ical profusion of new idioms, classic slang, and a wildly poetic 
phraseology, that has sprung from the mining camps and 
new settlements of the far west, and that has strongly im- 
pressed the culture of the age. If the theory be correct that 
the newspaper is supplanting both the demand and taste for 
books, then the name given to this period (The Golden 
Age) is doubly proper, for every branch of literature is at 
present full to completion, and our authors contest the 
palm of excellence with the world's sages. 

Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872), a man of strange 
and unusual genius, who won fame with both the brush 
and pen, standing well not only among American poets, but 
also among artists, was born in Chester County, Pa. Though 
he spent many years abroad in the study of his art, he was 
thoroughly American, which is evidenced by the ardent 
and sometimes fierce patriotism of his poems. His two most 
ambitious productions, The New Pastoral and The Wagoner of 
the AUeghenies, written while residing in Eome, are especially 
imbued with home-love, and so great was his afiection for 
his native land, that when overpowered by disease during 
his voluntary exile, he expressed himself content to die if 
he might first reach the beloved shore, which he happily 
did, before he could say in his own words with realistic 
truth, — 

No more, no more 

The worldly shore 

Upbraids me with its loud uproar ! 

With dreamful eyes 

My spirit lies 

Under the walls of Paradise." 

Attacked on the voyage by pneumonia, he survived a day 
or two after landing at New York, dying in the arms of 
those who loved him best. He was the author of Christine, 
10 



110 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Sheridan^ s Ride, Drifting, The Closing Scene, The Oath, The De- 
fender, and Brushwood. 

Alice Gary (1820-1871), the Jean Ingelow of America^ 
the greatest female genius that our country has produced, 
was born at Mount Healthy, near Cincinnati, and died at 
her home in New York city. Contributing verses to the 
Cincinnati press at the age of eighteen, which were well 
received, she first attracted attention by a series of sketches 
of rural life. Removing with her sister Phoebe (1824-1871) 
to New York, the two issued a volume of poems. She wrote 
Married, not Mated, and Hollywood, novels ; Pictures of Coun- 
try Life, The Bridal Veil, Thanksgiving, Krumley, The Bishop^ s 
Son, and Snow Berries. 

Selections : 

" Do you hear the wild birds calling — 
Do you hear them, oh, my heart ? 
Do you see the blue air falhng 
From their rushing wings apart ? 

" With young mosses they are flocking, 
For they hear the laughing breeze 
With dewy fingers rocking 

Their hght cradles in the trees ! 

" Within Nature's bosom holden, 

Till the wintry's storms were done, 
Little violets, white and golden, 
Now are leaning to the sun." 

Lyra, and Other Poems. 

" Painter, paint me a sycamore, 

A spreading and snowy-limbed tree, 
Making cool shelter for three ; 

And like a green quilt at the door 
Of the cabin near the tree 
Picture the grass for me, 

With a winding and dusty road before, 
Not far from the group of three 
And the silver sycamore-tree." — Snow Berries. 

" 'T is not a wild chorus of praises, 
Nor chance, nor yet fate ; 
'Tis the greatness born with him and in him, 
That makes the man great." 

TJie Measure of Time. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



Ill 



Phoebe Gary (1824-1871) wrote many beautiful poems, 
such as Nearer Home, and, among other amusing parodies, 
one on the Psalm of Life, 

Bayard Taylor (1825-1878), who was alike eminent as 
a traveller, novelist, and poet, was born in Kennet Square, 
Pa., and died at Berlin, while representing our country as 
Minister to Germany. He collected and published a vol- 
ume of poems when nineteen years old, under the title of 
Ximena. His novels are original in their material and treat- 
ment ; his poems gleam with exuberant fancy, and he has 
given evidence of ripe scholarship in his translation of 
Goethe's Faust, A volume entitled Views a-Foot was the 
result of his first European tour, and this w^as followed by 
Rhymes of Travel, El Dorado, Northern Travel, The Lands of 
the Saracen, By-ways of Europe, The Picture of St. John, Lars, 
The Masque of the Gods, Scenery and Men, Hannah Thurston, 
John Godfrey's Fortunes, The Story of Kennett, Joseph and his 
Friend, The Poefs Journal, and many other works. 

Selections : 

" They sang of love, and not of fame ; 
Forgot was Britain's glory ; 
Each heart recalled a different name, 
But all sang 'Annie Laurie.' " 

The Song of the Camp. 

TO THE NILE. 

" Mysterious Flood, — that through the silent sands 
Hast wandered, century on century. 
Watering the length of green Egyptian lands, 
Which were not, but for thee. 

'Art thou the keeper of that eldest lore, 

Written ere yet thy hieroglyphs began, 
When dawned upon thy fresh, untrampled shore 
The earliest life of Man ? 

"Thy godship is unquestioned' still. I bring 
No doubtful worship to thy shrine supreme ; 
But thus my homage as a chaplet fling, 

To float upon thy stream ! " — Poems of the Orient. 



112 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



*' fair young land,"^ the youngest, fairest far 
Of which our world can boast, 
"Whose guardian planet, Evening's silver star, 
Illumes thy golden coast, — 

" How art thou conquered, tamed in all the pride 
Of savage beauty still ? 
How brought, panther of the splendid hide, 

To know thy master's will ? " — Romances and Lyrics. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836 ), our lyric poet, 

was born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and resides at 
present in Boston. His verses have a smoothness and 
finish possessed by few of his contemporaries, and they 
have a beauty of diction and a perfection of metre that 
has not been surpassed by any other writer. He first won 
favor by his poems of Bahie Bell and The Face against the 
Pane, succeeded by the charming productions of Cloth of 
Gold, Interludes, Spring in New England, Friar Jerome^ s Beau- 
tiful Book, and Lyrics and. Sonnets. The principal novels 
of this author are The Story of a Bad Boy, Marjorie Daw, 
Prudence Palfrey, in addition to the lately published travel 
sketches entitled From Ponkapog to Pesth. 

Selection : 

ON LYNN TERRACE. 
(1879.) 

"All day to watch the blue wave curl and break, 
All night to hear it plunging on the shore ; 
In this sea-dream such draughts of life I take, 
I cannot ask for more. 

" Behind me lie the idle life and vain, 

The task unfinished, and the weary hours ; 
That long wave bears me softly back to Spain 
And the Alhambra's towers ! 

" Or some gaunt castle lures me up its stair ; 
I see, far off, the red-tiled hamlets shine, 
And catch, through slits of windows here and there, 
Blue glimpses of the Rhine. 



* California. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



113 



"And now I linger in green English lanes, 
By garden-plots of rose and heliotrope ; 
And now I face the sudden pelting rains 
On some lone Alpine slope. 

"All this is mine, as I lie dreaming here, 

High on the windy terrace, day by day ; 
And mine the children's laughter, sweet and clear, 
Ringing across the bay. 

" For me the clouds ; the ships sail by for me ; 
For me the petulant sea-gull takes its flight ; 
And mine the tender moonrise on the sea. 
And hollow caves of night! " 

Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833 ), the banker 

poet, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, removed to New 
York at the age of twenty -two, and became a writer for 
the Tribune. In 1864: he joined the Stock Exchange, and his 
books have all appeared since he became a habitue of Wall 
Street. As poet, prose writer, and critic, he displays an 
acute discrimination and rare genius in his Poems, Lyric 
and Idyllic; Alice of Monmouth and other Poems, The Blameless 
Prince, Complete Poems, Victorian Poets, — critical studies (1875), 
— and Edgar Allan Poe (an essay). 

Selection : 

" Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin, 
At what age does Love begin ? 
Your blue eyes have scarcely seen 
Summers three, my fairy queen, 
But a miracle of sweets. 
Soft approaches, sly retreats. 
Show the little archer there. 
Hidden in your pretty hair ; 
When didst learn a heart to win? 
Prithee tell me, Dimple- Chin ! 

* Oh ! ' the rosy lips reply, 

* I can't tell you, if I try. 

'T is so long I can't remember. 
Ask some younger lass than I.' 

Tell, tell me, Grizzled-Face, 
Do your heart and head keep pace ? 
10* H 



114 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



When does hoary Love expire, 
When do frosts put out the fire? 
Can its embers burn below, 
At that chill December snow ? 
Care you still soft hands to press. 
Bonny heads to smooth and bless ? 
When does Love give up the chase ? 
Tell, tell me, Grizzled-Face ! 

" 'Ah ! ' the wise old lips reply, 
' Youth may pass, and strength may die ; 
But of Love I can't foretoken : 
Ask some older sage than I ! ' " 

Toujours Amour. 

Francis Bret Harte (1837 ), the leader of the 

quartette of dialect poets,^ was born at Albany, New York, 
but removed to California while in his teens, where he 
became successively a teacher, miner, printer, and editor. 
At present he is the resident consul at Glasgow, Scotland. 
His dialect poems — for he has also written in pure English 
— are the reproductions of the mingled humor and pathos, 
crime and romance, of the life he saw on the Pacific slope. 
''He interprets rude populations, which he at the same 
time condemns." The writings of this author are of a varied 
nature, consisting of the poems, The Heathen Chinee, Her Let- 
ter, Echoes of the Foot Hills, Jim, Chiquita ; the novels, Gabriel 
Conroy, JeffBriggs' Love Story; and the sketches and stories, 
The Luck of Roaring Camp, Mrs. Skaggs' Husband, The Outcasts 
of Poker Flat, Flip, Found at Blazing Star, The Story of a 
Mine, Tales of the Argonauts, and Two Men of Sandy Bar, — a 
play. 

Selections : 

" Her lover was fickle, and fine, and French; 
It was nearly a hundred years ago 
When he sailed away from her arms, — poor wench, — 
With the Admiral Rochambeaa." 

A Newport Romance. 

" Here 's the spot. Look around you. Above on the height 
Lay the Hessians encamped. By the church on the right 



* Harte, Miller, Hay, and Carleton. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



115 



Stood the gaunt Jersey farmers. And here ran a wall — 
You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball. 
Nothing more. Grasses spring, waters run, flowers blow 
Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago. 

"And Caldwell, the chaplain, her husband, away ! 
Did he preach — did he pray ? Think of him, as you stand 
By the old church to-day ; think of him and that band 
Of militant cowboys ! See the smoke and the heat 
Of that reckless advance — of that struggling retreat ! 
Keep the ghost of that wife foully slain in your view. 

"And what could you — what should you, what would you do ? 
"Why, just what he did ! They were left in the lurch 
For want of more Avadding. He ran to the church, 
Broke the door, stripped the pews, and dashed out in the road 
With his arms full of hymn-books, and threw down his load 
At their feet. Then above all the shouting and shots 

" Rang his voice : ' Put Watts into 'em, boys ! give 'em Watts !' 
And they did. That is all. Grasses spring, flowers blow 
Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago ; 
You may dig anywhere and you '11 turn up a ball, 
But not always a hero like this — and that's all." 

Caldwell at Springfield. 

Oincinnatus Heine Miller (1841 ), more properly 

knowm as Joaquin Miller, though a native of Indiana, lived 
from early boyhood in Oregon and California ; and his ad- 
venturous life, for many years, is depicted in the pictu- 
resque and fascinating poems he has written. He has for the 
past ten years resided principally in Europe, having pub- 
lished, after many failures, a volume of poems in London 
in the year 1870, that gave him an almost instantaneous 
popularity wherever the English tongue is spoken. His 
principal writings are the poems — Songs of the Sierras, Songs 
of the Sun-Lands, and The Ship in the Desert, and the pow- 
erful serial, " 49 :" The Gold Seeker of the Sierras. 

Selections : 

" Over the mountains and down by the sea 
A dear old mother sits waiting for me. 
Waiting for me, waiting for me — 
A dear old mother sits waiting for me. 



116 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



^' Oh, waiting long, and oh, waiting late, 
Is a sweet-faced girl at the garden gate ; 
Over the mountains and down by the sea 
A sweet-faced girl is waiting for me." 

Waiting for Him. 

" The grass is green on Bnnker Hill, 
The waters sweet in Brandywine ; 
The sword sleeps in the scabbard still, 
The farmer keeps his flock and vine ; 
Then who would mar the scene to-day 
With vaunt of battle-field or fray ? 

"The brave corn lifts, in regiments, 

Ten thousand sabres in the sun ; 
The ricks replace the battle tents, 

The bannered tassels toss and run. 
The neighing steed, the bugle's blast — 
These be the stories of the past. 

" Lo ! peace on earth ! Lo ! flock and fold, 
Lo ! rich abundance, far increase, 
And valleys clad in sheen of gold, 

Oh, rise and sing the song of peace ! 
For Theseus roams the land no more, 
And Janus rests with rusted door." 

The People's Song of Peace. 

Will Carleton (1845 ) was bom at Hudson, Mich- 
igan, lived the life of a farmer's boy, taught school at 
sixteen, graduated at Hillsdale College in 1869, and then 
entered the journalistic profession, to which he still be- 
longs. Farm Ballads contains Betsey and I Are Out, Hoiv 
Betsey and I Made Up, Over the Hill to the Poor-House, Goin^ 
Home To-day, The New Church Organ, Nancy, and other 
poena s, which have been met by the people with unexpected 
favor. The homely, familiar style and dialectical peculiari- 
ties of his writings have been varied by the easy flowing 
verse of Young Folks' Centennial Rhymes and Farm Festivals. 

Selections : 

" There were anxioQs young novices, drilling their spelling-books 
into the brain. 

Loud-puffing each half-whispered letter, like an engine just 
starting its train. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



117 



There was one fiercely muscular fellow, who scowled at the 

sums on his slate, 
And leered at the innocent figures a look of unutterable hate. 
A class in the front with their readers, were telling with difii- 

cult pains 

How perished brave Marco Bozzaris, while bleeding at all of 
his veins ; 

And a boy on the floor to be punished, a statue of idleness 
stood, 

Making faces at all of the others, and enjoying the scene all 
he could." — Farm Legends. 

"If to trace a hidden sorrow were within the doctor's art, 
They ha' found a mortgage lying on that woman's broken 
heart. 

Worm or beetle, drouth or tempest, on a farmer's land may 
fall, 

But for first-class ruination trust a mortgage 'gainst them all." 

The Mortgage on the Farm. 

On the removal of the remains of John Howard Payne 
to this country : 

" The banishment was overlong, 

But it will soon be past ; 
The man who wrote Home's sweetest song 

Is coming home at last ! 
For years his poor abode was seen 

In foreign lands alone, 
And waves have thundered loud between 

This singer and his own. 
But he will soon be journeying 

To friends across the sea ; 
And grander than of any king 

His welcome here shall be." 

Coming Home at Last. 

Colonel John Hay (1839 ), who served as private 

secretary to President Lincoln, is the author of a number 
of poems, among which may be named The Prayer of the Ro- 
mans, The Curse of Hungary, The Enchanted Shirt, etc. He 
also wrote several dialect poems, of which the most popu- 
lar is Jim Bludso. His Bread- Winners was a great success. 

Selection : 

" Wall, no ! I can't tell whar he lives. 
Because he don't live, you see ; 



118 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Leastways, he 's got out of the habit 
Of livin' like you and me. 

"Whar have you been for the last three year, 
That you haven't heard folks tell 
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks 
The night of the Prairie Belle ? 



" The fire bust out as she cleared the bar, 
And burnt a hole in the night, 
And quick as a flash she turned, and made 
For that willow-bank on the right. 

*' There was runnin' and cursin', but Jim yelled out, 

Over all that infernal roar, 
' I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank 

Till the last galoot 's ashore.' 



" Through the hot, black breath of the burnin' boat 
Jim Bludso's voice was heard. 
And they all had trust in his cussedness, 
And knowed he would keep his word. 

" And, sure 's you 're born, they all got off 
Afore the smoke-stack fell, — 
And Bludso's ghost went up alone 
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle." 

Jim Bludso. 

Paul H. Hayne (1831-1886) was the author of a number 
of lyric poems of the highest order. They are published 
under the title of Sonnets. Also Avolio, a Legend of the Island, 
of Cos. A confirmed invalid, he was aided by the loving 
care and sympathy of a devoted wife. 

Selection : 

" O'er all the land, a vision rare and splendid — 
(What time the summer her last glory yields !) 
I saw the reapers, by tall wains attended, 

Wave their keen scythes across the ripened fields. 
At each broad sweep the glittering grain stalks parted, 

With all their sunniest lustres earthward bowed ; 
But still those tireless blade-curves flashed and darted, 
Like silvery lightnings from a golden cloud." 

Harvest Time. 



W. D. Howells (1837 ), whose writings are noted 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



119 



for their ease and grace of diction, the picturesqueness as 
well as truthfulness of description, is the author of Vene- 
tian Life, Their Wedding Journey, A Chance Acquaintance, A 
Foregone Conclusion, The Undiscovered Country, A Modern In- 
stance, Out of the Question, a comedy, and A Sea Change. 

S. L. Clemens (1835 ), born at Florida, Monroe 

County, Missouri, received a common school education, and 
was successively a printer, pilot, miner, and editor. While 
connected with the Virginia City Enterprise, he summed up 
legislative proceedings in weekly letters from Carson, 
which he signed " Mark Twain," in memory of his pilot 
days, when it was a term to announce two fathoms of water. 
Eeturning from the Sandwich Islands in 1866, with a high 
reputation which started him as a successful lecturer, he 
came east and published his Jumping Frog and Other 
Sketches, followed by The Innocents Abroad; or, The New 
Pilgrim^ s Progress, Roughing It, Tom Sawyer, and A Tramp 
Abroad. 

Robert J. Burdette (1841 ), a popular lecturer, 

has become widely known through his witticisms pub- 
lished in the Burlington (Iowa) Hawkeye. 

Selection : 

"No wonder the mule is a kicker. Were I a mule, I, too, 
would kick. I know just exactly what kind of a mule I would 
be. A bay mule. One of those sad-eyed old fellows that lean 
back in the breeching and think. With striped legs like a zebra. 
And a dark, brown streak down my back, and a paint-brush 
tail. And my mane cut short, and my foretop banged, and a 
head as long as a flour barrel, and I 'd be worth two hundred 
and a half in any market, and I 'd wear a flat harness and no 
binders, and some day when some man hitched me up to a dray, 
and piled on a ton and a half of pig iron, a cord of wood, six 
barrels of flour, and a steamboat boiler, I would start off with 
it patiently, and haul it steadily until I got to the top of the 
grade on the new road around North Hill, and right about there 
and then a falling maple leaf, fluttering down in a spark of gold 
and crimson, would scare me all but to death, and the authori- 
ties would have to drag the Mississippi Eiver six weeks to find 
all of that load and some of that driver, while in three minutes 
after the emeute, I would be tranquilly browsing on the grassy 



120 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



heights that smile above the silver flowing river. That is the 
kind of a mule I would be." — The Mule. 

Other noted humorists are Charles F. Browne (1836-1867), 
author of Artemus Ward, His Book; Artemus Ward Among 
the Mormons ; James M. Bailey (1841-1894), author of Mr. 
Phillips' Goneness; D. R. Locke (1833-1887), Melville D. 

Landon ( ), Charles G. Leland (1824 ), C. H. 

Webb (1835 ), and Henry W.Shaw ( ). 

Miscellaneous Writers of this Age. 

George H. Boker (1824-1890), a native of Philadelphia, 
is a lyric poet and dramatic writer of great excellence, 
and has represented the United States at Constantinople 
and at St. Petersburg. He is the author of Anne Boleyn, 
Calaynos, Lenor de Guzman, tragedies ; The Widow's Marriage, 
The Podesta's Daughter, dramas ; and the poems, The Black 
Regiment, Ballad of Sir John Franklin, The Ivory Carver, etc. 

James Barron Hope (1829-1887), the grandson of 
Commodore Barron, and a resident of Norfolk, was the au- 
thor of Leoni Di Monota and other Poems, including a Story 
of the Caraccas Valley, Three Summer Studies, and The Charge 
at Balaklava. His Centennial Poem is a work of rare excel- 
lence. 

R. H. Stoddard (1825 — — ), the critic, biographer, and 
magazinist, has written Footprints, a collection of poems ; 
Songs of Summer, In Memoriam, The King's Bell, the different 
volumes of which contain the well-known Never Again, The 
Burden of Unrest, On the Town, etc. 

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was the author of Leaves 
of Grass, Drum Taps, Specimen Days, and November Boughs. 

Harriet Prescott Spotford (1835 ) has written 

upon the Servant Girl Question. 

Selection : 

" Fifty years together ! 
Fifty years of summer life, 
Sunshine and happy weather. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



121 



Fifty years unparted, 

Every smile that wreathed his lips 

Making her glad-hearted. 

"All the long wayfaring, 
Every trouble in the path 
Half made joy by sharing. 

" Blessed beyond all sorrow — 
Fifty years of earth to-day, 
Eternal heaven to-morrow ! " — Golden Wedding. 

Charles Dudley Warner (1829 ), the writer of 

Baddeck, and That Sort of Thing; My Summer in a Garden, 
Being a Boy, etc., is the joint author with Mark Twain of 
the Gilded Age. 

Samuel Selden, M. D. (1834-1880), of Norfolk, Vir- 
ginia, wrote Watchman ! What of the Night f She is not Dead 
but Sleepeth, and October Bays. 

John Eston Cooke (1830-1886), a noted Virginian, was 
the author of the thrilling romances, Surry of Eaglets Nest, 
Hilt to Hilt, Wearing of the Gray; and the biographies, A 
Life of General Lee and Stonewall JacJcson. 

Philip P. Cooke (1816-1850) wrote the famous Froissart 
Ballads. 

Father A. J. Ryan (1846-1886), of Mobile, the priest- 
poet, wrote Tlie Conquered Banner, in Knoxville, Tenu., the 
day after the news of Lee's surrender was received there. 

Charles Dimitry (1838 ) is the writer of the beauti- 
ful poems. The Sergeant's Story, The Alderly Tragedy, and 
Guilty or Not Guilty. 

Joel C. Harris (1848 ) was the author of Agnes, from 

which are taken the following lines : 

** She has a tender, winning way, 

And walks the earth with gentle grace ; 
And roses with the lily play 
Amid the beauties of her face." 

Edward Everett Hale (1822 ), a Boston divine, 

created an intense sensation by the publication of The Man 
Without a Country. Also the author of My Double, and How 
11 



122 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



He Undid Me; The Ingham Papers, Ninety Days' Worth of Ea- 
rope, etc. 

George W. Curtis (1824-1892) wrote that delightful 
volume of travel, Nile Notes of a Howadji, besides Prue 
and Ij Potiphar Papers, and Trumps, 

Edward Bggleston (1837 ) wrote the popular 

Hoosier Schoolmaster, The End of the World, The Mystery of 
Metropolisville, and Boxy. 

J. T. Trowbridge (1827 an interesting story-teller, 

has written the humorous Darius Green and the Flying Ma- 
chine. 

Selection : 

" We are two travellers, Roger and I, 

Roger 's my dog — Come here, you scamp ! 
Jump for the gentlemen — mind your eye ! 
Over the table,— look out for the lamp." 

The Vagabonds. 

Donald Gr. Mitchell (1822 ) is the genial writer of 

The Reveries of a Bachelor, Lorgnette^ Fudge Doings, Dream 
Life, Wet Days at Edgewood, etc. 

Henry Morford (1323 ) is best known by his war- 
novels of Should er-Straps, The Days of Shoddy, The Coward, 
and The Bells of Shandon, an Irish drama. 

Richard Grant White (1822-1885), an eminent Shake- 
spearian scholar and critic, was the author of an Edition of 
Shakespeare, England Without and Within, A Life of Shake- 
speare, Words and their Uses, with its sequel, Every-Day Eng- 
lish. 

Selection : 

" Whoever would learn to think naturally, clearly, logically, 
and to express himself intelligibly and earnestly, let him give 
his days and nights to William Shakespeare." 

James R. Gilmore (1822 ), who has become widely 

known under his assumed name,"^ is the author of Among 
the Pines and TJie Great South. 



*See Pseudonyms, p. 179. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE, 



123 



Miss Louise M. Alcott (1832-1888) wrote LiiiU Women, 
Old- Fashioned Girl, Little Men, etc. 

Mrs. Jas. Parton (1811-1872) was the author of the two 
novels, Ruth Hall and Rose Clark, and miscellaneous 
sketches and tales, such as Fern Leaves, Folly as it Flies, Gin- 
ger Snaps, etc. 

Selection : 

*' nonsense ! Be thankful you have any sort of a wife. 
How many poor, dilapidated wretches, who never got anything 
but the 'mitten,' are at this minute sewing up their toes in their 
stockings, pinning up the rents in their coat flaps, hemming their 
own handkerchiefs, paring off the ragged edges of their wrist- 
bands, and inking the gapes in thoir elbows." 

James Parton (1822-1891), a popular essayist, was the 
author of several biographies. Lives of Jefferson, Franklin, 
Jackson, etc. 

Francis Parkman (1823-1893), a noted historian, wrote 

The Conspiracy of Pontiac, The Jesuits, The Pioneers cf France 
in the New World, and The Discovery of the Great West. 

Thos. W. Hig-ginson (1823 ) has written Oldport 

Days, Army Life in a Black Regiment, Malhone (a novel), and 
many popular Essays. 

Henry James, Jr. (1845 ), inheriting from his fa- 
ther a rich and varied diction, has written A Passionate 
Pilgrim, Roderick Hudson, The American, The Europeans, Con- 
fidence, The Portrait of a Lady, and Daisy Miller : A Comedy. 

Horace B. Scudder (1838 ) has gained an envied 

popularity by his Bodley series. 

Mary D. Brine ( — ), another juvenile writer, is 

the author of My Boy and J; or, On the Road to Slumberland, 
Papa's Little Daughters, etc. 

Selection : 

" For sounder sleep 
Than the far-famed Bo-Beep 
Was the boy who had promised me cherries." 



124 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Among noted novelists are Mrs. Augusta Evans Wilson, 
Beulah, Macaria, St. Elmo, etc. ; Mrs. Terhune, Hidden Path, 
Alone, Ruby's Husband, etc. ; Mrs. E. D. E. N. South worth, 
author of an almost interminable list of popular books, 
such as The Fatal Marriage, The Curse of Clifton, The Deserted 
Wife, etc. ; Mary J. Holmes, Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, and 
Mary Clemmer Ames. 

Elihu Burritt (1811-1879), known as the learned black- 
smith, the master of many languages, was the author of 
over thirty volumes, the best-known of which are Sparks 
from the Anvil and Chips from Many Blocks. 

Selection : 

" The whole universe is full of God's polyglot Bibles. Every 
sun, planet, and satellite is a separate volume, of which every 
paragraph and line is written by his own hand." 

Rev. Elijah Kellogg (1813 ), a clergyman of Bos- 
ton, wrote Supposed Speech of Eegulus, 

F. N. Crouch (1808-1896), a resident of Baltimore, was 
the author of Kathleen Mavourneen. 

Note.— For obvious reasons, the names of many noted theological 
authors, historians, and magazinists, legal, scientific, and educational 
writers, female poets, and others, have been omitted from this list. 

General Queries. — Who are our leading lexicographers? Have 
you seen tha!; literary curiosity, Oilman's Oracles? Who wrote 
Ben Bolt ? Ans. — Thomas Dunn English. Have you read Harte's 
Condensed Novels? Of what does it consist? Who wrote The 
Picket Guard; or, All Quiet along the Potomac? What works 
are of disputed authorship? Who first devoted herself to a lit- 
erary career? Name the author of Ups and Doivns in the Life of 
a Distressed Gentleman. What question was settled by Macken- 
zie's Life of Commodore Perry ? What writer discarded, both Id 
theory and practice, all drinks but water, and all animal food ? 
What diplomatic positions did Boker hold ? Who is the author of 
Life and Sayings of Mrs. Partington? Have you read Brantz 
Mayer's Mexico as It Was and as It Is? Who wrote the familiar 
song A Life on the Ocean Wave? What is the suggestive title of 
A. Bronson Alcott's new book of poems? For what is Professor 
W. D. Whitney noted ? What name is concealed under the ini- 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



125 



tials H. H. ? Who is the author of the The Lost Cause f By whom 
was Cudjo's Cave written? What are the writings of John G. 
Bhea ? Have you read George P. Marsh's History of the English 
Language f Who is noted for his Defence of Colonel Timothy 
Pickering against Bancroft's History ? Have you read Mrs. Hodg- 
son's Through One Administration f Who wrote This, That, and 
the Other ? Who is the author of The Gates Ajar f What is the 
name of Kate Field's volume? To what class of literary subjects 
does Edwin Axnoldi^^ Light of Asia belong? What are the writ- 
ings of Gail Hamilton ? By whom were the Rollo Books written ? 
Are you familiar with current literature ? What are the uses of 
standard literature ? 

11* 



Part III. 



Pearls at Random Strung. 

Extract from Csedmon's Paraphrase. 



1. 

Nu we sceolan herian 
heofon-rices weard, 
metodes mihte, 
and his mod-ge-thonc, 
wera wuldor-fsBder ! 
swa he wundra ge-hwses, 
ece dryhten, 
oord onstealde. 
He serest ge-sceop 
ylda bearnum 
heofon to hrofe, 
halig scyppend ! 
tha middan-geard 
mon-cynnes weard, 
ece dryhten, 
»fter teode, 
firum foldan, 
frea selmihtig ! 

2. 

He nom tha Englisca hoc 
Tha makede Seint Beda ; 
An other he nom on Latin, 
Tha makede Seint Albin, 
And the feire Austin, 
The fulluht broute hider in. 
Boc he nom the thridde, 



Now we shall praise 
the guardian of heaven, 
the might of the creator, 
and his mind's thought, 
the glory-father of men ! 
how he of all wonders, 
the eternal lord, 
formed the beginning. 
He first created 
for the children of men 
heaven as a roof, 
the holy creator ! 
then the world 
the guardian of mankind, 
the eternal lord, 
produced afterwards, 
the earth for men, 
the almighty master. 



He took the English book 
That Saint Bede made ; 
Another he took in Latin, 
That Saint Albin made, 
And the fair Austin, 
That baptism brought hither 
The third book he took, 
126 



Extract from the Brut of Layamon. 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG. 127 



Leide ther amidden, 

Tha makede a Frenchis clerc, 

Wace was ihoten, 

The wel couthe writen, 

And he hoc yef thare aethelen 

Allienor, the wes Henries 

quene, 
Thes heyes kinges. 



And laid there in midst, 
That made a French clerk, 
Wace was he called, 
That well could write, 
And he it gave to the noble 
Eleanor, that was Henry's 

Queen, 
The high king's. 



3. Extract from the Canterbury Tales. 

" Learned at Padua of a worthy clerk 
Francis Petrarch, the laureat poet 
Hight this clerk, whose rhetoric sweet 
Enlumined all Italy of poetry.""^ 

4. E'pisode of Eosiphele. 

[Rosiphele, princess of Armenia, a lady of surpassing beauty, 
but insensible to the power of love, is represented by the poet 
as reduced to an obedience to Cupid, by a vision which befell 
her on a May-day ramble. The opening of this episode is as 
follows :] 

" When come was the month of May, 
She would walk upon a day, 
And that was ere the sun arist, 
Of women but a few it wist ; 
And forth she went privily. 
Unto a park was fast by 
All soft walk and on the grass 
Till she came there the land was." 

John Gower. 

5. King John and the Abbot. 

" An ancient story He tell you anon 
Of a notable prince that was called King John ; 
And he ruled England with maine and with might, 
For he did great wrong, and mainteined little right." 
An old and formerly very popular ballad. — Percy's Peliques. 

6. 

From a favorite nursery rhyme of the Owl and the Pussy Cat, 
who went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat, but after were 
married and had a wedding feast. 



* Supposed casual allusion to Chaucer's interview with Petrarch. 



128 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



"They dined on mince and slices of quince, 
Which they ate with a runcible * spoon ; 
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, 
They danced in the light of the moon." 

7. The Praise of Women. 

" For man without woman 's a beggar, 
Although the whole w^orld.he possessed; 
And the beggar who has a good wife. 
With more than this world he is blest." 

An Old English Ballad. 

Duke. And what 's her history ? 

Vio. A blank, my lord. She never told her love ; 
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud. 
Feed on her damask cheek ; she pined in thought ; 
And, with a green and yellow melancholy. 
She sat, like Patience on a monument, 
Smiling at grief. — Shakespeare : Twelfth Night. 

9. "He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one; 
Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading : 
Lofty and sour, to them that lov'd him not ; 
But to those men that sought him, sweet as Summer." 

Shak. : King Henry VIII. 

10. 

*' What 's in a name ? that which we call a rose, 
By any other name would smell as sweet." 

Shak. : Romeo and Juliet. 

11. " We are such stuff 

As dreams are made on ; and our little life 

Is rounded with a sleep." — Shak. : The Tempest. 

12. 

" The lover, all as frantic. 
Seeks Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt: 
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling. 
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ; 
And, as imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name." 

Shak. : A Midsummer- NigM s Dream. 



* The word runcible is coined for the occasion, from the Latin " runci- 
nare," convex on both sides— lidding no food at all. 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG. 129 



13. " Her voice was ever soft, 

Gentle, and low, — an excellent thing in woman." 

Shak. : King Lear. 

14. " The quality of mercy is not strained — 

It droppetih, as the gentle rain from heaven, 

Upon the place beneath : it is twice blessed ; 

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes ; 

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes 

The throned monarch better than his crown. 

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, 

The attribute to awe and majesty, 

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings ; 

But mercy is above this sceptred sway, — 

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings ; 

It is an attribute to God himself; 

And earthly power doth then show likest God's, 

When mercy seasons justice." 

Shak. : Merchant of Venice^ 

15. " There is a tide in the affairs of men, 

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune ; 

Omitted, all the voyage of their life 

Is bound in shallows, and in miseries, 

And we must take the current when it serves, 

Or lose our ventures." — Shak. : Julius Ccesar. 

16. 

** Good name in man and woman, dear my lord. 
Is the immediate jewel of their souls : 

Who steals my purse, steals trash ; 't is something, nothing ; 
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; 
But he that filches from me my good name 
Kobs me of that which not enriches him, 
And makes me poor indeed." — Shak. : Othello. 



17. LTie Shepherd's Resolution. 

" Shall I, wasting in despair. 
Die because a woman 's fair ? 
Or make pale my cheeks with care, 
'Cause another's rosy are ? 
Be she fairer than the day, 
Or the flow'ry meads in May, 
If she be not so to me. 
What care I how fair she be ? " 

George Wither, 

I 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Those cherries fairly do enclose 

Of orient pearl a double row, 
Which, when her lovely laughter shows, 

They look like rosebuds fill'd with snow." 

Richard Allison. 

Gather the Rose-buds. 

Gather the Rose-buds, while ye may, 

Old Time is still a-flying, 
And this same flower that smiles to-day 

To-morrow will be dying. 

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun, 

The higher he 's a getting, 
The sooner will his race be run, 

The nearer he 's to setting." — Robert Herrich. 

Cherry Ripe. 

" Cherry ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry, 
Full and fair ones— come and buy ; 
If so be you ask me where 
They do grow ? — I answer, There, 
Where my Julia's lips do smile- — 
There 's the land, or cherry-isle ; 
Whose plantations fully show 
All the year where cherries grow." — Ihid, 

Go, Lovely Rose. A Song. 

" Go, lovely rose ! 
Tell her that wastes her time and me, 
That now she knows. 
When I resemble her to thee. 
How sweet and fair she seems to be. 

Tell her that 's young 

And shuns to have her graces spied, 

That, hadst thou sprung 

In deserts, where no men abide, 

Thou must have uncommended died. 

*' Then die ! that she 
The common fate of all things rare 
May read in thee. 

How small a part of time they share 
That are so wondrous sweet and fair." 

Edmund Waller. 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG. 131 



22. " By Woden, God of Saxons, 

From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday, 
Truth is a thing that ever I will keep 
Unto thylke day in which I creep into 
My sepulchre ." — Cartwright. 

23. 

"If that severe doom of Synesius be true — 'it is a greater 
offence to steal dead men's labors than their clothes' — what 
shall become of most writers? " 

Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. 

24. 

" But seven wise men the ancient world did know ; 
We scarce know seven who think themselves not so." 

Denham. 

25. Intemperance. 

" Take especial care that you delight not in wine, for there 
never was any man that came to honor or preferment that loved 
it, for it transformeth a man into a beast, decayeth health, 
poisoneth the breath, destroyeth natural heat, bringeth a man's 
stomach to an artificial burning, deformeth the face, rotteth the 
teeth, and, to conclude, maketh a man contemptible, soon old, 
and despised of all wise and worthy men ; hated in thy servants, 
thyself and thy companions, for it is a bewitching and infec- 
tious vice ; and remember my words, that it were better for a 
man to be subject to any vice than to it; for all other vanities 
and sins are recovered, but a drunkard will never shake off the 
delight of beastliness ; for the longer it possesseth a man, the 
more he will delight in it, and the older he groweth, the more 
he will be subject to it, for it dulleth the spirit and destroyeth 
the body, as ivy doth the old tree, or as the worm that engen- 
dereth in the kernel of the nut." — Sir Walter Raleigh. 

26. " Fain would I climb, yet fear to fall."^ — Ihid. 

27. " My love and I for kisses play'd ; 

Shee would keep stakes, I was content ; 

But when I wonn she would be pay'd, 

This made me ask her what she ment. 

Nay, since I see (quoth shee), you wrangle in vaine, 

Take your kisses, give me mine againe." 
[From the Common-Place Book of Justinian Page, a lawyei 
of the time of James the First, preserved among the Harleian 
MSS. in the British Museum.] 



* Written on a glass window obvious to the Queen's eye ; her Majesty, 
either espying or being shown it, did underwrite, '* If thy heart fails thee, 
climb not at dlV—Fullefs Worthies, 



132 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



28. " He either fears his fate too much, 

Or his deserts are small, 
That dares not put it to the touch 
To gain or lose it all." — Marquis of Montrose. 

29. " But far more numerous was the herd of such 

Who think too little and who talk too much." 

Dryden. 

30. Story of Coronis. 

" The raven once in snowy plumes was drest, 
White as the whitest dove's unsullied breast, 
Fair as the guardian of the Capitol, 
Soft as the swan ; a large and lovely fowl ; 
His tongue, his prating tongue had changed him quite, 
To sooty blackness from the purest white." — Addison. 

31. The Song of the Rain. 

*' Lo ! the long, slender spears, how they quiver and flash 
Where the clouds send their cavalry down ! 

Eank and file by the million the rain-lancers dash 
Over mountain and river and town ; 

Thick the battle-drops fall — but they drip not in blood ; 

The trophy of war is the green, fresh bud : 
0, the rain, the plentiful rain. 

And deep in the fir- wood below, near the plain, 

A single thrush pipes full and sweet, 
How days of clear shining will come after rain. 

Waving meadows, and thick-growing wheat ; 
So the voice of Hope sings, at the heart of our fears, 
Of the harvest that springs from a great nation's tears ; 

0, the rain, the plentiful rain." — From the Spectator. 

32. The Moon. 

" I with borrowed silver shine ; 
What you see is none of mine. 
First I show you but a quarter. 
Like the bow that guards the Tartar, 
Then the half, and then the whole. 
Ever dancing round the pole." — Swift. 

33. 

" I saw their chief, tall as a rock of ice ; his spear, the blasted 
fir ; his shield, the rising moon : he sat on the shore, like a cloud 
of mist on the hill." — Ossian. 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG. 133 



34. " Procrastination is the thief of time — 

Year after year it steals till all are fled." — Young. 

35. " Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, 

Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be." 

Pope. 

36. " Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self." 

Thomson. 

37. " "Westward the course of empire takes its way ; 

The first four acts already past, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; 
Time's noblest offspring is the last." 

Bishop Berkeley. 

38. " The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian dome, 

Outlives in fame the pious fool that raised it." 

Colley Cibber. 

39. 

" I will point ye out the right path of a virtuous and noble 
education; laborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so 
smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect, and melodious 
sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more 
charming." — Milton. 

40. The Passions. 

" But thou, Hope, with eyes so fair, 
What was thy delighted measure ? 
Still it whispered promised pleasure, 
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail ! 

Still would her touch the strain prolong, 
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale. 

She called on Echo still through all her song ; 
And where her sweetest theme she chose, 
A soft, responsive voice was heard at every close, 
And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair!" 

Collins. 

41. " Think that day lost whose [low] descending sun 

Views from thy hand no noble action done." 

Jacob Bobart. 

4:2. 

" Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet ; that qual- 
ity without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert ; 
that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates ; 
the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to T)ry- 
12 



134 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



den. It is not to be inferred that of this poetical vigor Pope 
had only a little, because Dryden had more ; for every other 
writer since Milton must give place to Pope ; and even of Dry- 
den it must be said, that if he has brighter paragraphs, he has 
not better poems." — Johnson. 

43. The Village Schoolmaster. 

" Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, 
With blossomed furze unprofitably gay ; 
There in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule, 
The village master taught his little school. 
A man severe he was and stern to view ; 
I knew him well and every truant knew. 
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace 
The day's disasters in his morning's face ; 
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee 
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he. 
Full well the busy whisper circling round 
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned ; 
Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught, 
The love he bore to learning was in fault. 
The village all declared how much he knew, 
'Twas certain he could write and cipher, too; 
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 
And e'en the story ran that he could' gauge. 
In arg'ing, too, the parson owned his skill. 
For e'en though vanquished, he could argue still ; 
While words of learned length and thundering sound, 
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ; 
And still they gazed and still the wonder grew, 
That one small head could carry all he knew. 
But past is all this fame, the very spot 
Where many a time he triumph' d, is forgot." — Goldsmith. 

44. " Sweet was the sound, when oft, at evening's close, 

Up yonder hill the village murmur rose ; 

There, as I passed with careless steps and slow. 

The mingling notes came softened from below ; 

The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung, 

The sober herd that lowed to meet their young, 

The noisy geese that gobbled o'er the pool. 

The playful children just let loose from school, 

The watch-dog's voice that bayed the whispering wind. 

And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind ; 

These all in sweet confusion sought the shade. 

And filled each pause the nightingale had made." 

Ibid. 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG, 135 



45. Love in a Village. 

" There was a jolly miller 

Lived on the river Dee ; 
He danced and sang from morn to night — 

No lark so blithe as he ; 
And this the burden of his song 

Forever used to be — 
* I care for nobody, no, not I, 

If nobody cares for me.' " — Isaac BicJcerstaff. 

46. " The curfew tolls the knell of parting day. 

The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea ; 
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, 
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 

"Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, 
And all the air a solemn stillness holds ; 
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds. 

" Let not Ambition mock their useful toil, 
Their homely joys and destiny obscure ; 
Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, 
The short and simple annals of the poor. 

" The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave. 
Await, alike, the inevitable hour ; 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave."* — Gray. 

47. " I sometimes hold it half a sin 

To put in words the grief I feel." — Tennyson. 

48. " Some lead a life unblamable and just, 

Their own dear virtue their unshaken trust ; 
They never sin,— or if (as all offend) 
Some trivial slips their daily walk attend, 
The poor are near at hand, — the charge is small, 
A slight gratuity atones for all." — Cowper. 

*The monument to Thomas Gray, in Westminster Abbey, erected in 
1778, bears the following inscription from the pen of Mr. Mason : 

No More The Grecian Muse Unrivalled Reigns, 
To Britain Let The Nations Homage Pay; 

She Felt A Homer's Fire In Milton's Strains, 
A Pindar's Rapture In The Lyre Of Gray. 



136 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



49. On Friendship. 

*' The man that hails you Tom or Jack, 
And proves by thumping on your back, 

His sense of your own merit, 
Is such a friend, that one hath need 
Be very much his friend indeed 

To pardon, or to bear it." — Cowper. 

50. To a Mouse. 

" The best laid schemes o' mice an' men 
Gang aft a-gley ; 
And lea's us naught but grief and pain 
For promised joy." — Burns. 

51. The Hermit 

" At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still, 
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove. 
When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill, 
And naught but the nightingale's song in the grove." 

Beattie. 

52. 

" History which is, indeed, little more than the register of the 
crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind." — Gibbon. 



53. The Honeymoon. 

" The man that lays his hand upon a woman, 
Save in the way of kindness, is a wretch. 
Whom 't were gross flattery to name a coward." 

John Tobin. 

54. From Epilogue to the Heir at Law. 

" On their own merits modest men are dumb." 

George Colman, The Younger. 

55. The Lay of the Last Minstrel. 

" I can not tell how the truth may be. 
I say the tale as 't was said to me." — Scott. 

56. " Her blue eyes sought the west afar. 

For lovers love the western star." — Ibid. 

57. 

" The Accusing Spirit which flew up to heaven's chancery 
with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the Recording 
Angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word, anS 
blotted it out forever." — Laurence Sterne. 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG. 



137 



58. From Speech on the Indian Bill, Nov., 1783. 

" Necessity is the argument of tyrants ; it is the creed of 
slaves." — Pitt. 

59. " But whether on the scaffold high, 

Or in the battle's van, 
The fittest place where man can die 

Is where he dies for man." — Michael F. Barry, 

60. Young Dream. 

" But there 's nothing half so sweet in life 
As love's young dream." — Tom Moore. 

61. Ill Omens. 

"And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen, 
The maiden herself will steal after it soon." — Ihid. 

62. The Tear of Repentance. 

" One morn a Peri at the gate 
Of Eden stood, disconsolate; 
And as she listened to the springs 

Of life within, like music flowing, 
And caught the light upon her wings 

Through the half-open portal glowing, 
She wept to think her recreant race 
Should e'er have lost that glorious place. 

" ' How happy,' exclaimed this child of air, 
' Are the holy spirits who wander there, 

'Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall! 
Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea, 

One blossom of heaven outblooms them all ! ' 

" The glorious angel who was keeping 
The gates of light beheld her weeping ; 
And, as he nearer drew and listened, 
A tear within his eyelids glistened. 
' Nymph of a fair but erring line ! ' 
Gently he said, ' one hope is thine. 
'Tis written in the book of fate, 

The Peri yet may be forgiven, 
Who brings to this eternal gate 

The gift that is most dear to Heaven ! 
Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin ; 
'T is sweet to let the pardoned in ! ' " — Ihid. 

12^ 



138 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



63. Queen Mah. 

*' Heaven's ebon vault, 
Studded with stars unutterably bright, 
Thro' which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, 
Seems like a canopy which love has spread 
To curtain her sleeping world." — Shelley, 

64. The Cloud. 

*' That orbed maiden with white fire laden, 
Whom mortals call the moon. 
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor. 
By the midnight breezes strewn ; 
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 
Which only the angels hear, 

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 

The stars peep behind her and peer ; 

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee 

Like a swarm of golden bees. 

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent. 

Till the calm river, lakes, and seas, 

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 

Are each paved with the moon and these." — Ibid, 

65. Hebrew Melodies. 

She walks in beauty, like the night 
Of cloudless climes and starry skies ; 

And all that 's best of dark and bright 
Meet in her aspect and her eyes ; 

Thus mellow' d to that tender light 

Which Heaven to gaudy day denies." — Byron, 

66. 

" Man's love is of man's life a thing apart ; 
'Tis woman's whole existence." — Ibid. 

67. 

" But words are things, and a small drop of ink. 
Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces 
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think." ' 

Ibid. 

68. Childe Harold. 

" Parting day 
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 
With a new color as it gasps away, 
The last still loveliest, till — 't is gone— and all is gray." 

Ibid. 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG. 139 



69. English Bards. 

" 'T is pleasant sure, to see one's name in print; 
A book 's a book, although there 's nothing i' it." 

Byron. 

70. Ode on a Grecian Urn. 

" Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 
Are sweeter ; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on, 
Not to the sensual air, but, more endear'd, 
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tune." — Keats. 



71. The Course of Time. 

" He was a man 
Who stole the livery of the court of Heaven 
To serve the devil in." — Pollok. 



72. The Spring Journey. 

" green was the corn as I rode on my way, 
And bright were the dews on the blossoms of May, 
And dark was the sycamore's shade to behold, 
And the oak's tender leaf was of emerald and gold. 

" The thrush from his holly, the lark from his cloud, 
Their chorus of rapture sang jovial and loud: 
From the soft vernal sky to the soft grassy ground. 
There was beauty above me, beneath, and around. 

" The mild southern breeze brought a shower from the hill ; 
And yet, though it left me all dripping and chill, 
I felt a new pleasure as onward I sped, 
To gaze where the rainbow gleamed broad overhead. 

" such be Life's journey, and such be our skill. 
To lose in its blessings the sense of its ill ; 
Through sunshine and shower may our progress be even. 
And our tears add a charm to the prospect of Heaven." 

Bishop Heher. 

73. ^ 

" Hence have I genial seasons ; hence have I 
Smooth passions, smooth discourse and joyous thoughts; 
And thus from day to day my little boat 
Rocks in its harbor, lodging peaceably. 
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise — 
The poets — who on earth have made us heirs 
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays ! 
Oh might my name be numbered among theirs. 
How gladly would I end my mortal days ! " — Hood. 



140 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 

74. Ye Mariners of England. 

" Britannia needs no bulwarks, 
No towers along the steep ; 
Her march is o'er the mountain-waves, 
Her home is on the deep." — Campbell, 

75. A Wish. 

*' Mine be a cot beside the hill ; 

A beehive's hum shall soothe my ear ; 
A willowy brook, that turns a mill, 

With many a fall shall linger near." — Rogers. 

76. To . 



" Go — you may call it madness, folly ; 
You shall not chase my gloom away, 
There 's such a charm in melancholy 
I would not if I could be gay." — Ibid. 

77. " Nature never did betray 

The heart that loved her ; 't is her privilege, 
Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
From joy to joy ; for she can so inform 
The mind that is within us, so impress 
With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men 
Shall e'er prevail against us, or distrust 
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold 
Is full of blessings." — Wordsworth. 

78. " She was a Phantom of delight 

When first she gleamed upon my sight; 

A lovely apparition, sent 

To be a moment's ornament." — Ibid. 

79. Rob Roys Grave. 

" Because the good old rule 
Sufi[iceth them, the simple plan. 
That they should take who have the power, 

And they should keep who can." — Ibid. 

80. " I fear thee, ancient mariner ! 

I fear thy skinny hand ! 
And thou art long, and lank, and brown, 
As is the ribbed sea-sand." — Coleridge. 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG. 141 



81. Landing of the Pilgrims. 

" The breaking waves dashed high 
On a stern and rock-bound coast ; 
And the woods, against a stormy sky, 
Their giant branches toss'd." 

" Ay, call it holy ground, 

The soil where first they trod ! 
They have left unstained what there they found — 
Freedom to worship God ! " — Mrs. Hemans. 

82. From an Evening Prayer at a Girls' School. 

" Her lot is on you — silent tears to weep, 

And patient smiles to wear through sufi'ering's hour, 
And sunless riches, from affection's deep. 

To pour on broken reeds, — a wasted shower ! 
And to make idols, and to find them clay, 
And to bewail that worship — therefore pray ! 

" Her lot is on you — to be found untired, 

Watching the stars out, by the bed of pain, 
With a pale cheek, and yet a brow inspired, 

And a true heart of hope, though hope be vain ; 
Meekly to bear with wrong, to cheer decay. 
And oh ! to love through all things — therefore pray ! " 

Lbid, 

83. The Excursion. 

" The good die first, 
And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust 
Burn to the sockets." — Wordsworth. 

84. Yarrow Unvisited. 

*' Let beeves and home-bred kine partake 
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow ; 
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake, 

Float double, swan and shadow." — Ibid. 

85. Amicus Redivivus. 

" Your absence of mind we have borne, till your presence of 
body came to be called in question by it." — Charles Lamb. 

86. From Lamb's Suppers. 

** Martin, if dirt was trumps, what hands you would have! " 

Ibid. 



142 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



87. Lady Holland's Memoir. 

'* It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a 
Scotch understanding." — Sydney Smith. 

88. What is Prayer. 

" Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
Unuttered or expressed, 
The motion of a hidden fire 

That trembles in the breast." — Montgomery. 

89. The Botanic Garden. 

" Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam ! afar 
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car, 
Or on wide waving wings expanded bear 
The flying chariot through the field of air." 

Erasmus Darvnn. 

90. Poor Jack. 

There 's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft. 
To keep watch for the life of poor Jack." 

Charles Dihdin. 

91. "And the stately ships go on 

To their haven under the hill ; 
But for the touch of a vanished hand, 

And the sound of a voice that is still ! " — Tennyson. 

92. " At length I saw a lady within call, 

Stiller than chiselled marble, standing there, 
A daughter of the gods divinely tall, 

And most divinely fair." — Ibid. 

93. Lilio.n. 

" Airy, fairy Lilian, 

Flitting, fairy Lilian, 
When I ask her if she love me, 
Clasps her tiny hands above me, 

Laughing all she can ; 
She '11 not tell me if she love me. 

Cruel little Lilian." — Ibid. 

94. " Roman Virgil, thou that singest 

Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire, 
Ilion falling, Rome arising, 

Wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre ! 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG. 143 



I salute thee, Mantovano, 

I that loved thee since my day began, 
Wielder of the stateliest measure 

Ever moulded by the lips of man." — Tennyson. 

The Old Year and the New. 

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 

The flying cloud, the frosty light, 

The year is dying in the night ; 
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new, 

Ring happy bells, across the snow ; 

The year is going, let him go. 
Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

Ring out the grief that saps the mind 
For those that here we see no more ; 
Ring out the feud of rich and poor, 

Ring in redress to all mankind. 

Ring in the valiant and the free. 

The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 
Ring out the darkness of the land ; 

Ring in the Christ that is to be." — Ibid. 

Oh, blessings on the falling out 

That all the more endears. 
When we fall out with those we love, 

And kiss again with tears ! " — Ibid. 

The High Tide. 

The old mayor climbed the belfry tower, 

The ringers ran, by two, by three ; 
* Pull, -if ye never palled before ! 

Good ringers, pull your best ! ' quoth he. 
' Play uppe, play uppe, Boston bells ! 
Play all your changes, all your swells — 

Play uppe " The Brides of Enderby." ' " 

Jean Ingelow. 

Paracelsus. 

" Are there not, dear Michal, 
Two points in the adventure of the diver, 
One — when, a beggar, he prepares to plunge ? 
One — when, a prince, he rises with his pearl? 
Festus, I plunge." — Robert Browning. 



144 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



99. Herve Riel 

" On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two, 
Did the English fight the French — woe to France ! 
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue, 
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue, 
Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Ranee, 
With the English fleet in view. 



Go to Paris ; rank on rank 

Search the heroes flung pell-mell 
On the Louvre, face and flank ; 
You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve RieL 
So for better and for worse, 
Herv^ Riel, accept my verse ! 
In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more 
Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife, the Belle 
Aurore." — Robert Browning. 

100. " Jenny kissed me when we met, 

Jumping from the chair she sat in ; 
Time, you thief! who love to get 

Sweets into your list, put that in. 
Say I 'm weary, say I 'm sad. 

Say that health and wealth have missed me ; 
Say I 'm growing old ; but add 

Jennie kissed me." — Leigh Hunt. 

101. " Abou Ben Adhem — (may his tribe increase!) — 

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, 
And saw, within the moonlight in his room, 
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, 
An Angel writing in a book of gold. 
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, 
And to the presence in the room he said, 
' What writest thou? ' The vision raised its head, 
And, with a voice made all of sweet accord, 
Answered, ' The names of those who love the Lord.' 
' And is mine one ? ' said Abou. ' Nay, not so,' 

Replied the Angel 

Abou spoke more low. 
But cheerly still ; and said, ' I pray thee, then, 
Write me as one who loves his fellow-men.' 
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night 
It came again with a great wakening light, 
And showed the names whom love of God had blest, 
And, lo, Ben Adhem's name led all the rest! " — Ibid. 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG. 145 



102. From Review of Rankes History of the Popes. 

"She (the Roman Catholic Church) may still exist in undi- 
minished vigor, when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in 
the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of 
London Bridge, to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's."^ — Macaulay. 

103. Richelieu. 

" In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves 
For a bright manhood, there is no such word 
As—fail.'' — PJd. Bulwer-Lytton. 

104 

" Beneath the rule of men entirely great 
The Pen is mightier than the Sword.f Behold 
The arch enchanter's wand ! — itself a nothing ! 
But taking sorcery from the master hand 
To paralyze the Casars, and to strike 
The loud earth breathless ! Take away the sword- 
States can be saved without it." — Ibid. 

105. 

" Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who 
sport on earth in the night-season, and melt away in the first 
beams of the sun, which lights grim Care and stern Reality in 
their daily pilgrimage through the world." — Dickens, 

106. Lothair. 

" Nothing in life is more remarkable than the unnecessary 
anxiety which we endure, and generally occasion ourselves."— 
Benj. Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield). 

107. " Old Abram Brown is dead and gone, 

You '11 never see him more, 
He used to wear a long brown coat 
That buttoned down before." 

Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes of England. 

108. Florio. 

Small habits well pursued betimes 
May reach the dignity of crimes." 

Hannah More. 



* Also used in a review of Mitford's Greece (1824), and in review of Mill's 
Essay on Government, in 1829. 
t Cardinal Richelieu's famous apothegm. 

13 K 



146 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



109. The Standard. 

*' Be good, my dear, and let who will be clever ; 
Do noble things, not dream them all day long ; 
And so make life, death, and that vast forever 
One grand, sweet song." — Charles Kmgsley. 

110. The Burial of Moses. 

" By Nebo's lonely mountain, 

On this side Jordan's wave, 
In a vale in the land of Moab, 

There lies a lonely grave ; 
And no man dug that sepulchre. 

And no man saw it e'er. 
For the angels of God upturned the sod 

And laid the dead man there. 

" That was the grandest funeral 
That ever passed on earth ; 
But no man heard the trampling 

Or saw the train go forth. 
Noiselessly as the daylight 

Comes when the night is done, 
And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek 
Grows into the great sun." 

Mrs. C. F. Alexander. 

111. Some Day. 

" I have ships that went to sea 

More than fifty years ago ; 
None have yet come home to me. 

But are sailing to and fro. 
Great the treasures that they hold, 
Silks and plumes and bars of gold ; 
While the spices that they bear 
Fill with fragrance all the air, 

As they sail, as they sail. 

" I have waited on the piers, 

Gazing for them down the bay, 

Days and nights for many years, 
Till I turn heart-sick away. 

But the pilots, when they land. 

Stop and take me by the hand. 

Saying : ' You will live to see 

Your proud vessels come from sea, 
One and all, one and all.' 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG, 147 



" So I never quite despair, 

Nor let hope or courage fail ; 
And some day when skies are fair 

Up the bay my ship will sail, 
I shall buy then all I need — 
Prints to look at, books to read, 
Horses, wines, and works of art, 
Everything except a heart 
That is lost, that is lost." — Barry Gray. 

" Some murmur when their sky is clear, 

And wholly bright to view. 
If one small speck of dark appear 

In their great heaven of blue ; 
And some with thankful love are filled, 

If but one streak of light, 
One ray of God's good mercy, gild 

The darkness of their night. 

" In palaces are hearts that ask. 
In discontent and pride, 
Why life is such a weary task. 



And hearts in poorest huts admire 

How love has in their aid 
(Love, that not ever seems to tire) 
Such rich provision made." — B. C. Trench. 



" There is a land where Fancy's twining 

Her flowers around life's fading tree, — 
Where light is ever softly shining, 

Like sunset o'er a tranquil sea. 
'T is there thou dwell'st in beauty's brightness. 

More fair than aught on earth e'er seems ; 
'T is there my heart feels most of lightness,-— 

There in the lovely land of dreams." 



114. " Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold 

Like the delicate gossamer tangles spun 

On the burnished disk of the marigold, 
Or the sunflower turning to meet the sun 
When the gloom of the jealous night is done, 

And the spear of the lily is aureoled." — Oscar Wilde. 




113. 



Rory O More. 



The Land of Dreams : Samuel Lover. 



148 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



115. " I have another life — a life I long to meet: 

Without which life my life is incomplete. 

Ah ! sweeter self, like me art thou astray, 

Trying with all thy soul to find the way 

To mine ? Straying like mine to find the breast 

On which alone can weary heart find rest." 

H. J. Byron. 

116. ^ 

" The Queene of Appamatuck was appointed to bring him 
water to wash his hands, and another brought him a bunch 
of feathers, instead of a Towell to dry them ; having feasted 
him after their best barbarous manner they could, a long con- 
sultation was held, but the conclusion was, two great stones 
were brought before Powhatan: then as many as could layd 
hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head, 
and being ready with their clubs, to beate out his braines, Po- 
cahontas, the King's dearest daughter, when no entreaty could 
prevaile, got his head in her armes, and laid her owne upon his 
to save him from death : whereat the Emperour was contented 
hee should live to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and 
copper." — Capt. John Smith's Generall Historic. 

117. " No pent-up Utica contracts our powers, 

But the whole boundless continent is ours." 

Jonathan Sewall. 

118. 

"The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market; it de- 
pends chiefly on two words — industry and frugality." — Franklin. 

119. " When by my bed I saw my mother kneel, 

And with her blessing took her nightly kiss ; 
Whatever Time destroys, he can not this, 
E'en now that nameless kiss I feel." 

Washington Allston. 

120. 

" Who is Blannerhasset ? A native of Ireland, a man of let- 
ters, who fled from the storms of his own country to find quiet 

in ours Possessing himself of a beautiful 

island, in the Ohio, he rears upon it a palace, and decorates it 
with every romantic embellishment of fancy. A shrubbery, 
that Shenstone might have envied, blooms around him. Music, 
that might have charmed Calypso and her nymphs, is his. An 
extensive library spreads its treasures before him. A philo- 
sophical apparatus offers to him all the secrets and mysteries of 
nature. Peace, tranquillity, and innocence shed their mingled 
delights around him. And to crown the enchantment of the 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG. 149 



scene, a wife, who is said to be lovely even beyond her sex, and 

traced with every accomplishment that can render it irresistible, 
ad blessed him with her love and made him the father of sev- 
eral children." — William Wirt. 

121. 

From Speech to both Houses of Congress, Jan. Sth, 1790. 

"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means 
of preserving peace." — Geo. Washington. 

122. The American Crisis. 

" These are the times that try men's souls." — Thomas Paine. 

123. Observations on the Boston Port Bill, 1744. 

" Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a 
' halter ' intimidate. For, under God, we are determined that, 
wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever, we shall be called to 
make our exit, we will die free men." — Josiah Quincy. 

124. A Word from a Petitioner. 

" A weapon that comes down as still 
As snow-flakes fall upon the sod ; 
But executes a freeman's will, 

As lightning does the will of God ; 
And from its force, nor doors nor locks 
Can shield you ; — 'tis the ballot-box." 

John Pierpont. 

125. " To him who in the love of Nature holds 

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language ; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
Into his darker musings with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
Over thy spirit, and sad images 
Of the stern agony and shroud and pall 
And breathless darkness and the narrow house 
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart, 
Go forth under the open sky, and list 
To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 
EaTth and her waters and the depths of air — 
Comes a still small voice." — Bryant. 
13* 



150 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



126. " The churl who holds it heresy to tliinh. 

Who loves no music but the dollar's clink, 

Who laughs to scorn the wisdom of the schools, 

And deems the first of poets first of fools, 

Who never found what good from science grew, 

Save the grand truth, that one and one make two, — 

'T is he across whose brain scarce dares to creep 

Aught but thrift's parent pair — to get, to keep." 

Charles Sprague. 

127. The Battle of Bunker Hill 

" It was a starry night in June, the air was soft and still, 
When the ' minute-men ' from Cambridge had gathered on the 
hill; 

Beneath us lay the sleeping town, around us frowned the fleet, 
But the pulse of freemen, not of slaves, within our bosoms 
beat; 

And every heart rose high with hope, as fearlessly we said, 
' We will be numbered with the free or numbered with the 
dead!' " — F. S. Cozzens. 



128. " The day is done, and the darkness 

Falls from the wings of night, 
As a feather is wafted downward 
From an eagle in his flight. 

" I see the lights of the village 

Gleam through the rain and the mist, 
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me 
That my soul cannot resist : 

*' A feeling of sadness and longing, 
That is not akin to pain. 
And resembles sorrow only 
As the mist resembles the rain. 

*' And the nights shall be filled with music, 
And the cares, that infest the day. 
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, 

And as silently steal away." — Longfellow. 



129. Tlie Launch of the Ship. 

" Thou, too, sail on, Ship of State! 
Sail on, Union, strong and great! 
Humanity, with all its fears. 
With all the hopes of future years, 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG. 151 



Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
"We know what Master laid thy keel, 
What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, 
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
In what a forge, and what a heat. 
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope." 

Longfellow. 

130. Paul Revere s Bide. 

"A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, 
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark 
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet ; 
That was all ! And yet, through the gloom and the light, 
The fate of a nation was ridrng that night ; 
And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight, 
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.' ' — Lhid. 

131. The Last Leaf. 

" The mossy marbles rest 
On the lips that he has prest 

In their bloom ; 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tomb." — Holmes. 

132. The Chambered Nautilus. 

*' This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 
Sails the unshadowed main — 
The venturous bark that flings 
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
In gnlfs enchanted, where the siren sings. 

And coral reefs lie bare, 
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair." 

Ibid. 

133. The Biglow Papers. 

" Under the yaller-pines, I house, 

When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, 
An' hear among their furry boughs 

The baskin' west-wind purr contented." — Lowell. 

134. 

"As these busts in the block of marble, so does our individual 
fate exist in the limestone of time. We fancy that we carve it 
out, but its ultimate shape is prior to all our action." 

Hawthorne. 



152 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



135. Waiting by the Gate. 

" Beside a massive gateway built up in years gone by, 
Upon whose top the clouds in eternal shadows lie, 
While streams the evening sunshine on quiet wood and lea, 
I stand and calmly wait till the hinges turn for me." 

Bryant. 

136. 

" Where American liberty raised its first voice, and where its 
youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the 
strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If dis- 
cord and disunion shall wound it ; if party strife and blind am- 
bition shall hawk at and tear it ; if folly and madness, if un- 
easiness under salutary restraint, shall succeed to separate it 
from that Union, by which alojie its existence is made sure, it 
will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its 
infancy was rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever 
of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gathered around 
it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amid the proudest 
monuments of its glory, and on the very spot of its origin." 

Webster. 

137. 

" Ah ! on Thanksgiving Day, when from East and from West, 
From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest, 
When the gray-haired New-Englander sees round his board 
The old broken links of affection restored. 
When the care- wearied man seeks his mother once more, 
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before. 
What moistens the lip, and what brightens the eye ? 
What calls back the past like the rich pumpkin pie ? 

Whittier, 

138. Summer Morning. 

"What varied colors o'er the landscape play! 

The very clouds seem at their ease to lean. 
And the whole earth to keep glad holiday. 

The lowliest bush that by the waste is seen 
Hath changed its dusky for a golden green. 

In honor of this lovely summer morn ; 
The rutted roads did never seem so clean ; 

There is no dust upon the wayside thorn, 

For every bud looks out as if but newly born. 

*' A cottage girl trips by with sidelong look, 
Steadying the little basket on her head ; 
And where a plank bridges the narrow brook 
She stops to see her fair form shadowed. 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG, 153 



The stream reflects her cloak of russet red ; 
Below she sees the trees and deep-blue sky, 

The flowers which downward look in that clear bed, 
The very birds which o'er its brightness fly : — 
She parts her loose-blown hair, then wondering, passes by/' 

Thomas Miller. 

139. 

" No wise young man can do without reading Bacon's Es- 
says; they are full of sense and truth. If you are led to the 
Life of Lord Bacon, you will thereby become acquainted with 
the most important period in English history — the time when 
the two greatest lights of England at that period, and one of 
them the greatest light that ever was in England — Shakespeare 
— were surrounded by able men ; the time of Elizabeth and of 
James ; the time of the great concentration of intellectual light 
in England." — Emerson. 

140. 

" There are days which occur in this climate, at almost any 
season of the year, wherein the world reaches its perfection ; 
when the air, the heavenly bodies, and the earth make a har- 
mony, as if Nature would indulge her ofi"spring ; when, in these 
bleak upper sides of the planet, nothing is to desire that we 
have heard of the happiest latitudes, and we bask in the 
shining hours of Florida and Cuba ; when everything that has 
life gives sign of satisfaction, and the cattle that lie on the 
ground seem to have great and tranquil thoughts." — Ibid, 

141. Each and All, 

" The delicate shells lay on the shore ; 
The bubbles of the latest wave 
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave ; 
And the bellowing of the savage sea 
Greeted their safe escape to me. 
I wiped away the weeds and foam, 
I fetched my sea-born treasures home ; 
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things 
Had left their beauty on the shore. 
With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar." 

LUd. 

142. " I like the lad, who, when his father thought 

To clip his morning nap«.by hackneyed phrase 

Of vagrant worm by early songster caught. 

Cried, ' Served him right ! 't is not at all surprising ; 

The worm was punished, sir, for early rising.' " — Saxe. 



154 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



143. Ye Pedagogue. 

" Righte learned is ye Pedagogue, 
Full apt to reade and spelle, 
And eke to teache ye parts of speeche, 
And strap ye urchins welle. 

** Righte lordlie is ye Pedagogue 
As any turbaned Turke ; 
For welle to rule ye District Schoole, 
It is no idle worke. 

" Ah ! many crosses hath he borne, 
And many trials founde, 
Ye while he trudged the district through, 
And boarded rounde and rounde. 

" Full solemn is ye Pedagogue 
Among ye noisy churls ; 
Ye other while he hath a smile 
To give ye handsome girls ; 

" And one — ye fay rest mayde of all 
To cheere his wayinge life, 
Shall be, when Springe ye flowers shall bringe, 
Ye Pedagogue, his wife." — Saxe. 



144. The Rising in 1776. 

" Out of the North the wild news came, 
Far flashing on its wings of flame, 
Swift as the boreal light which flies 
At midnight through the startled skies. 
And there was tumult in the air, 

The fife's shrill note, the drum's loud beat, 
And through the wide land everywhere 

The answering tread of hurrying feet ; 
While the first oath of Freedom's gun 
Came on the blast from Lexington ; 
And Concord, roused, no longer tame, 
Forgot her old baptismal name. 
Made bare her patriot arm of power. 
And swelled the discord of the hour." — T. B.Read. 

145. 

" He [Jeff"erson] was no orator. He once defined a lawyer as 
a person whose trade it is to contest everything, concede noth- 
ing, and talk by the hour. He could not talk by the hour. 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG. 155 



Besides the mental impediment, there was a physical impedi- 
ment to his addressing a large company. If he spoke in a tone 
much above that of conversation, his voice soon became husky 
and inarticulate. But Madison, to whom we owe the preserva- 
tion of this fact, used also to say that when he was a student he 
heard Jefferson plead a cause before a court, and acquit himself 
with both fluency and force." — Parton. 

146. 

" If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. 
But do not care to convince him. Men will believe what they 
see. Let them see." — Thoreau. 

147. Yankee Doodle. 

" The good the Rhine-song does to German hearts. 
Or thine, Marseilles! to France's fiery blood; 

The good thy anthemed harmony imparts, 

' God Save the Queen ! ' to England's field and flood, 

A home-born blessing. Nature's boon, not Art's, 
The same heart-cheering, spirit-warming good. 

To us and ours, where'er we war or woo, 

Thy words and music, Yae'kee Doodle ! — do." — Hallech. 

148. ' Day and Night. 

" Day is a snow-white Dove of heaven, 
That from the east glad message brings ; 
Night is a stealthy, evil Raven, 

Wrapped to the eyes in his black wings." — Aldrich. 

149. The Streamlet. 

*' It is only the tiniest stream, 

With nothing whatever to do, 
But to creep from its mosses, and gleam 

In just a thin ribbon or two. 
Where it spills from the rock, and besprinkles 

The flowers all round it with dew. 

" Half-way up the hillside it slips 

From darkness out into the light, 
Slides over the ledges, and drips 

In a basin all bubbling and bright, 
Then once more, in the long meadow-grasses, 

In silence it sinks out of sight. 

** Oh, teach me your song, happy brook ! 
If I visit you yet many times, 



156 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



If 1 put away business and book, 
And list to your fairy-bell chimes, 

Will your freshness breathe into my verses, 
Your music glide into my rhymes ? " 

Trowbridge, 

150. The Discovery of America. 

** Columbus on the lonesome deck 

Keeps watch at dead of night, 
Searching with anxious eyes the dark ; 
What sees he far away ? A spark, 

A little glimmering light. 

** Then boomed the Pinta's signal gun ! 

The first that ever broke 
The silence of a world. That sound, 
Echoing to savage depths profound, 

A continent awoke. 

" Wild joy possessed each mariner's breast, 

When day revealed a rich 
And fruitful island, fair and green. 
Where naked savages were seen 

Running along the beach." — Ihidj. 



151. Midsummer. 

" Around this lonely valley rise 

The purple hills of Paradise. 

Oh, softly on yon banks of haze 

Her rosy face the Summer lays ! 
Becalmed along the azure sky 
The argosies of Cloudland lie, 
Whose shores, with many a shining rift, 
Far off their pearl-white peaks uplift." 

Ihid. 

152. 

" There 's a dangerous little Afrite who accosts us day by day, 
Upsetting every purpose in a soft, enticing way, 
Saying, ' Rest from this, I pray you, for to-morrow you can 
try— 

If hard work is to be done, you can do it BY-AND-bY.' 
Though he tell you not to do it, 
Mind him not, or you will rue it, 
For his words so smooth and clever 
Take you to the house of Never." — Joel Benton. 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG, 157 



Kit Carson's Wife. 

' On winter eve, when cabins bright 
With the crimson flash of the log-fire's light, 
And the soft snow sleeps on the prairie's breast, 
They gather — the frontier scouts of the West — 
And, speaking sometimes with bated breath, 
Of wars of the border, and deeds of death. 
They crown their stories of reckless strife 
With the famous ride of Kit Carson's wife. 

Into the streets of a cabin town — 

Into the village riding down. 

With fevered brain, and with glazing eyes, 

And breath that fluttered in gasping sighs, 

She still urged on the faltering steed, 

That had served her well in her hour of need, 

And the pony leaped as it felt the rein, 

Galloped, staggered, and reeled again, 

And just as it reached Kit Carson's door, 

With work well done, and with anguish o'er, 

Fell to the earth and stirred no more. 

An hour later the great scout died. 

His faithful Indian wife at his side. 

She only lingered a little while, 

And followed him then with a happy smile. 

Together they sleep in the self-same grave, 

Where widely the winds of winter rave, 

And in summer the prairie flowers wave ! " 

Joaquin Miller. 

Sunrise. 

" The east is blossoming ! Yea, a rose, 
Vast as the heaven, soft as a kiss. 
Sweet as the presence of woman is, 
Rises and reaches and widens and grows 
Right out of the sea, as a blossoming tree : 
Richer and richer ; so higher and higher. 
Deeper and deeper it takes its hue ; 
Brighter and brighter it reaches through 
The space of heaven and the place of stars, 
Till all as rich as a rose can be, 
And my rose-leaves fall into billows of fire." 

Ibid, 

Bluebeard. 

" Centuries since there flourished a man — 
A cruel old Tartar as rich as the Khan — 



158 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Whose castle was built on a splendid plan, 
With gardens and groves and plantations ; 

But his shaggy beard was as blue as the sky, 

And he lived alone, for his neighbors were shy, 

And had heard hard stories, by the by, 
About his domestic relations." — Holland. 

156. Gibraltar. 

" While I was resting comfortably on a rampart, and cooling 
my baking head in the delicious breeze, an officious guide be- 
longing to another party came up and said : ' That high hill 
yonder, sir, is called the Queen's Chair.' ' Sir,' said I, inter- 
rupting him — ' sir, I am a helpless orphan, in a foreign land. 
Have pity on me. Don't' — now dont — inflict that most tiresome 
old legend on me any more to-day.' " — Mark Twain. 

157. Miss Blanche's Rose. 

" And you are the poet, and so you want 

Something — what is it— a theme or fancy ? 
Something or other the muse won't grant 

In your old poetical necromancy ; 
Why, one-half you poets — you can't deny — 

Don't know the muse when you chance to meet her, 
But sit in your attics and mope and sigh. 
For a 'faineant' goddess to drop from the sky, 
When flesh and blood may be standing by, 

Quite at your service should you but greet her. 

" What if I told you my own romance ? 

Women are poets if you so take them, 
One-third poet — the rest what chance 

Of man and marriage may choose to make them. 
Give me ten minutes before you go. 

Here at the window, we '11 sit together 
Watching the currents that ebb and flow, 
Watching the world as it drifts below, 
Up the hot avenue's dusty glow ; 

Is n't it pleasant, this bright June weather? 

*' I know your answer. I 'm not yet through ; 

Look at the photograph — ' In the Trenches.' — 
That dead man in the coat of blue 

Holds a withered rose in his hand. That clenches 
Nothing! Kxcept that the sun paints true 

And a woman sometimes is prophetic minded. 



PEARLS AT RANDOM STRUNG. 159 



And that 's my romance. And, poet, you 
Take it and mould it to suit your view. 
And who knows but you may find it to 

Come to your heart once more as mine did." 

F. Bret Harte. 

158. A Greyport Legend — 1797. 

** It is but a foolish shipman's tale, 

A theme for a poet's idle page. 
But still, when the mists of doubt prevail, 

And we lie becalmed by the shores of Age, 
We hear from the misty, troubled shore. 
The voice of the children gone before, 

Drawing the soul to its anchorage." — Lbid. 

159. The Closing Year, 

" 'T is midnight's holy hour — and silence now 
Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er 
The still and pulseless world. Hark ! on the winds 
The bell's deep tones are swelling — 't is the knell 
Of the departed year. No funeral train 
Is sweeping past ; yet, on the stream and wood, 
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest 
Like a pale, spotless, shroud ; the air is stirred 
As by a mourner's sigh ; and, on yon cloud 
That floats so still and placidly through heaven, 
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand, — 
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form, 
And Winter with his aged locks, — and breathe, 
In mournful cadences, that come abroad 
Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail, 
A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year. 
Gone from the -earth forever." — Geo. D. Prentice. 

160. Beautiful Things. 

" Beautiful faces are those that wear — 
It matters little if dark or fair — ■ 
Whole-souled honesty printed there. 

** Beautiful eyes are those that show. 
Like crystal panes where hearth-fires glow, 
Beautiful thoughts that burn below. 

" Beautiful lips are those whose words 
Leap from the heart like songs of birds, 
Yet whose utterance prudence girds. 



160 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



" Beautiful hands are those that do 
Work that is earnest, brave, and true, 
Moment by moment, the long day through. 

" Beautiful feet are those that go 
On kindly ministries to and fro — 
Down lowliest ways, if God wills it so. 

*' Beautiful shoulders are those that bear 
Ceaseless burdens of homely care 
With patient grace and daily prayer. 

*' Beautiful lives are those that bless — 
Silent rivers of happiness, 
Whose hidden fountains but few may guess. 

" Beautiful twilight, a set of sun, 
Beautiful goal, with race well won, 
Beautiful rest, with work well done. 

** Beautiful graves where grasses creep. 
Where brown leaves fall, where drifts lie deep 
Over worn-out hands — oh, beautiful sleep ! " 

Ellen F. AlUrton. 



Familiar Quotations. 

*' Quotations are the watchwords of literary mexi"— Johnson. 

According to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations^ the au- 
thors most frequently quoted from are— the order indi- 
cating their popularity — Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Byron, 
Wordsworth, Goldsmith, Gray, Tennyson, Moore, Scott, 
Dryden, and Butler's Hudihras. Of course the Bible is by 
far the most popular source of quotations, and Shakespeare 
stands next. But the writer whose works are read the 
least of the names given above is Alexander Pope. Yet 
he is the author who furnishes, next to Shakespeare and 
Milton, the largest number of popular quotations. The fol- 
lowing list will give some idea of his popularity : 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. 



161 



" Lo, the poor Indian." " All are but parts of one stupen- 
dous whole." " Man never is, but always to be, blest." " Die 
of a rose in aromatic pain." " Whatever is, is right." " The 
proper study of mankind is man." " Grows with his growth 
and strengthens with his strength." "Vice is a monster of so 
frightful mien," etc. " Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a 
straw." " He can't be wrong whose life is in the right." " Or- 
der is Heaven's first law." " Worth makes the man, — the want 
of it the fellow." "An honest man 's the noblest work of God." 
" Looks through nature up to nature's God." "From grave to 
gay, from lively to severe." "Guide, philosopher, and friend." 
"Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined." "Mistress of 
herself, though China fall." "Who shall decide when doctors 
disagree? " " To err is human ; to forgive, divine." " Fools rush 
in where angels fear to tread." "Damn with faint praise." 
"Willing to wound and yet afraid to strike." "Breaking a 
butterfly upon awheel." " The feast of reason and the flow of 
soul." "Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest." "Do 
good by stealth, and blush to find it fame." " The mockery of 
woe." "Party is the madness of many for the gain of a few." 
*' In wit, a man ; simplicity, a child." " I lisped in numbers, for 
the numbers came." " A grace beyond the reach of art." 

" Shoot folly as it flies, 
And catch the manners living as they rise." 

*' Honor and shame from no condition rise : 
Act well your part — there all the honor lies." 

" That mercy I to others show, 
That mercy show to me." 

The following quotations are from Shakespeare : 

" The Devil may cite Scripture for his purpose." " Assume a 
virtue though you have it not." " Brevity is the soul of wit." 
"The sere, the yellow leaf." "Curses not loud, but deep." 
"Make assurance doubly sure." "Thereby hangs a tale." 
" Good wine needs no bush." " Though last, not least, in love." 
"Food for powder." "One touch of nature makes the whole 
world kin." " There 's a divinity in odd numbers, either in 
nativity, chance, or death." " At my fingers' ends." " The glass 
of fashion and the mould of form." " A snapper -up of uncon- 
sidered trifles." " He will give the Devil his due." " The better 
part of valor is discretion." " He hath eaten me out of house 
and home." " Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." " He 
jests at scars that never felt a wound." " The live-long day." 
*' The game is up." " When shall we three meet again ? " 
14* L 



162 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 

" For aught that ever I could read, 
Could ever hear by tale or history, 
The course of true love never did run smooth." 



Other familiar and frequently used quotations with the 
names of their authors are as follows: 

" Men are but children of a larger growth." — Dry den. 
" To maken vertue of necessite." — Chaucer. 

Man proposes, but God disposes."* — Thomas a Kempis. 
"And when he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of mind." 
— Ibid. 

" Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen." — Ibid. 

" Tush, tush, my lassie, such thoughts resign, 
Comparisons are cruel ; 
Fine pictures suit in frames as fine, 
,^ Consistency 's a jewel.'' — Old English Ballad. 

' "Time tries the troth in everything." — Thomas Tusser. 
" April showers do bring May flowers." — Ibid. 
" The stone that is rolling can gather no moss." — Ibid. 
" Better late than never." — Ibid. 

" At Christmas play, and make good cheer. 
For Christmas comes but once a year." — Ibid. 

" Except wind stands as never it stood, 
It is an ill wind turns none to good." — Ibid. 



" Through thick and thin, both over bank and bush, 
In hope her to attain by hook or crook."! — Spenser. 



* Thi.s expression is of much greater antiquity; it appears in the 
Chronicle of Battel Abbey, page 27 (Lower's translation), and in Piers 
Plowman's Vision. 

t Also from Hey wood's Provrrhs. 1516, and Tottel's Miscellany, 1557. 
("Look before you ere yon leap." Butler's IfiKJihras.) 
X From Druytou, Middlcton, Kcmj), Butler, Dryden, Pope, and Cowper. 



" There 's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them how we will." 




" Look ere thou leap, see ere thou go."f — Ibid. 



" Dry sun, dry wind. 
Safe bind, safe find." — Ibid. 



FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS. 



163 



"Count the chickens ere they 're hatched." — Butler. 

** Necessity, the tyrant's plea." — Milton. 

" Peace hath her victories." — Ihid. 

" My dear, my better half." — Sir Philip Sidney. 

" Who ever loved that loved not at first sight." — Marlowe. 

" Love me little, love me long." — Ihid. 

"When taken, 
To be well shaken." — Colman. 

"I had a soul above buttons." — Ihid. 
" There is another and a better world." — Kotzehue. 
" You 'd scarce expect one of my age," etc. — David Everett. 
" Approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley is praise indeed." — 
Morton. 

*' God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." — Sterne. 

" Their cause I plead — plead it in heart and mind ; 
A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind.""^ — Garrick. 

To point a moral or adorn a tale." — Johnson. 
" Slow rises worth by poverty depressed." — Ihid. 
"Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs." — Goldsmith. 
"And to party gave up what was meant for mankind." — Ihid. 
" Winter lingering chills the lap of May." — Ihid. 

" For he who fights and runs away 
May live to fight another day ; 
But he who is in battle slain 
Can never rise and fight again." — Ihid, 

"Of two evils I have chose the least." — Prior. 

" His (God's) image cut in ebony." — Thomas Fuller. 

" Richard 's himself again." — Colley Cihher. 

" Building castles in the air," originally written " Building 
castles in Spain." — Scarron. 

" Hope, the dream of a waking man." — Basil. 

" Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast." — Congreve. 

" Earth has no rage like love to hatred turned." — Ihid. 

" Let who may make the laws of a people, allow me to write 
their ballads, and I '11 guide them at my will." — Sir Philip 
Sidney. 

" He whistled as he went for want of thought." — Dry den. 

" Great wits are sure to madness near allied." — Ihid. 

" None but the brave deserve the fair." — Ihid. 

"And man the hermit sighed till woman smiled." — Camphell. 



* " I would help others out of a fellow-feeling." Burton's Anatomy of 
MeUmcholy; Democritus to the Reader. 



164 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



" From seeming evil still educing good." — Thomson. 
" To teach the young idea how to shoot." — Ibid. 

" Where ignorance is bliss, 
'Tis folly to be wise." — Oray. 

" Thoughts that breathe and words that burn." — Ibid, 
"Nursing her wrath to keep it warm." — Burns. 

" If there 's a hole in a' your coats, 
I rede ye tent it ; 
A chiel's amang ye takin' notes, 
And, faith, he'll prent it." — Ibid. 

"As clear as a whistle." — Byron. 
*' She walks the waters like a thing of life." — Ibid. 
" The cups that cheer but not inebriate." — Cowper. 
^' Not much the worse for wear." — Ibid. 
"Masterly inactivity." — Mackintosh (1791). 
" The Almighty Dollar." — Washington Irving. 
" I own the soft impeachment." — Sheridan. 
"An oyster may be crossed in love." — Ibid. 
" Entangling alliances." — George Washington. 
" Where liberty dwells, there is my country." — Benjamin 
Franklin. 

'^The world is my country; to do good is my religion." — 
Thomas Paine. 
" The post of honor is the private station." — Addison. 
" Straws show which way the wind blows." — James Cheatham. 
"A good time coming." — Scott. 
" Face the music." — Cooper. 

" Two souls with but a single thought. 
Two hearts that beat as one." 

Munch Bellinghausen's Ingomar. 

" Night drew her sable curtain down 
And pinned it with a star." — Macdonald Clarke. 

" I awoke one morning and found myself famous." — Byron. 

" Variety is the spice of life." — Coiuper. 

" Paradise of fools." — Milton. 

" Joking decides great things." — Ibid. 

" The end must justify the means." — Prior. 

" Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled, 
On Fame's eternall beadroU worthie to be fyled." — Spenser. 

" Though lost to sight, to memory dear." — Geo. A. lAnley. 



Part IV. 



Recreations, Pseudonyms, Etc. 

The Sorrows of Genius. 

Bacon lived a life of distress ; Sir Walter Ealeigh, Sir 
Thomas More, and Henry Howard died on the scaffold ; Mil- 
ton sold his copyright of Paradise Lost for fifteen pounds at 
three payments, and finished his life in obscurity ; Dry den 
lived in poverty and distress ; Otway died in hunger and 
neglect ; Lee died in the street ; Steele lived all his days 
fighting the sheriff's officers ; Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield 
was sold for a trifle to save him from the grip of the law ; 
Fielding lies in the burying-ground of the English factory 
at Lisbon, without a stone to mark the spot ; Savage died 
in prison at Bristol, where he was confined for the debt of 
eight pounds ; Butler lived a life of great poverty, and died 
poor ; Chatterton, the child of genius and misfortune, de- 
stroyed himself. 

Authors.— Their Habits. 

How Dryden worked we cannot find recorded ; doubtless 
at any time and at all times, whenever the need of money 
pressed him. Milton always composed with his head 
thrown far back. Pope worked himself into a high state 
of excitement, and always required his writing-desk to be 
set upon his bed before he rose. Gray was perhaps of all 
writers the most curiously minute in his method ; it is said 

165 



166 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



that he perfected each line separately, amending and re- 
writing it over and over again, and never commenced an- 
other until the first had wholly satisfied his fastidious taste. 
Byron sat down to write at midnight, without any premed- 
itation ; his ideas flowed with his ink, and one line sug- 
gested the next. But after the poem was completed, and 
during its passage through the press, he w^as continually 
altering, interlining, and adding. The first copy of The 
Giaour consisted of only four hundred lines ; to each new 
edition w^ere added new passages, until it swelled to nearly 
four thousand one hundred lines. During the printing of 
The Bride of Ahydos he added two hundred lines, and many 
of the original were altered again and again. When Lamb 
wrote, he smoked. Addison used to pace up and down the 
long hall at Holland House, before he w^as ready for his 
pen. De Queseney first promulgated his notion of universal 
freedom of person and trade, and of throwing all taxes on 
the land — the germ, perhaps of the French Eevolution — 
in the boudoir of Madame de Pompadour. Bacon knelt 
down before composing his great work, and prayed for 
light from Heaven. 

One of the most constantly laborious authors of whom w^e 
have any account was Southey. In one of his letters he 
writes : " Imagine me in this great study of mine (at Greata 
Hall, Keswick), from breakfast till dinner, from dinner till 
tea, and from tea till supper, in my old black coat, my cor- 
duroys alternated with the long-w^aisted pantaloons and 
gaiters in one, and the green shade, and sitting at my desk, 
and you have my picture and my history. My actions are 
as regular as those of St. Dunstan's quarter bags. Three 
pages of history after breakfast, then to transcribe and copy 
for press, or to make my selections and biographies, or what 
else suits my humor, till dinner-time ; from dinner till tea 
I read, write letters, see the newspapers, and very often 
indulge in a siesta. After tea I go to poetry, and correct 
and re-write and copy till I am tired, and then turn to any- 
thing till supper, and this is my life, which, if it be not a 
merry one, is yet as happy as heart could wish." Carlyle 



RECREATIONS, PSEUDONYMS, ETC. 167 



took a good, vigorous, English walk of several miles (far 
enough to get himself into a glow), and then was ready for 
his pen. Wilkie Collins works slowly, writing from nine 
to ten pages of a book daily when he works regularly, 
though, in his own words : " It 's a pretty good day's work 
for me to get through three pages in a day." He usually 
completes a book in about six months. 

Horace Walpole states that he wrote " The Castle of 
Otranto " in eight nights, as his hours of writing were usu- 
ally from ten till two at night, when he would not be dis- 
turbed by any visitants. While writing, he kept the coffee- 
pot handy, and occasionally regaled himself with a hot 
cup. 

This was much better than Tom Paine's style. When 
pressed by his printer for copy, he shut himself up with his 
decanter of brandy and a glass. The first draught only set 
him a thinking ; the second he used to brighten his in- 
tellect, and the third set him in full running order. He wrote 
rapidly and with precision, the thoughts coming faster than 
he could jot them down. Much that he has written bears 
marks of such inspiration. 

Poor John Mitford was another " who tarried long at the 
wine." Possessed of brilliant powers, he burned them all 
out with this unhallowed fire. He wrote a nautical novel, 
quite popular in its day, while houseless and homeless. His 
publishers gave him a shilling a day while he wrote it. 
Two pennies' worth of bread and cheese and an onion 
were his food. The rest went for gin. At night he slept 
in a bed of grass and nettles. Thus he passed forty -three 
days, doing his own washing in a pond when he considered 
it necessary. 

Jane Austen, who was the daughter of a country clergy- 
man, and whose life was an uneventful one (as most happy 
ones are), usually wrote at her desk in the common sitting- 
room, reading her stories to her mother and sister as she 
wrote them. The amount she received from her publishers 
would seem small to-day, but she was always surprised that 
she should receive so much for what cost her so little. 



168 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



There is one point on which most of the brain-workers 
agree, for they usually begin their work in the morning. 
As Dr. Alexander once said, he " liked to break the neck 
of the day's work as early as possible." 

How They Wrote. 

Pope's manuscript was filled with scratched-out words 
and interlineations. Macaulay's writing was small, but for- 
cible and decided. Sir Philip Sidney wrote a very stilted, 
stiff hand. Shakespeare's handwriting was straggling and 
uncertain. Eobert Burns wrote a firm, sturdy hand. Dickens 
wrote with numerous flourishes, especially under his name, 
which he decorated with a series of erratic marks, and his 
manuscripts to be seen in the Forster collection at South 
Kensington, are rugged and full of alterations and emenda- 
tions. The writing of Charlotte Bronte was distinguished 
for its extreme minuteness. Tennyson's writing is small 
but delicate. Porson, the great Greek scholar, among the 
untidiest of students, wrote neatly and elegantly. The 
writing of Thomas Carlyle was crabbed and indistinct. 
Edgar Allan Poe wrote beautifully, and with scarcely an 
erasure. Wilkie Collins's manuscripts are said to present a 

horrible" look, as they are cut, interlined, the interlinea- 
tions interlined again, sentences written on the side and 
hauled into place by a line around them, and erasures which 
look as though the writer, in trying to scratch out some- 
thing, tried also to push it out through the paper on the 
other side, with blots everywhere. 

Their Married Life. 

Byron's marriage to Miss Milbanke, as is indicated in 
text, soon resulted in a permanent separation. Eobert 
Burns married a farm-girl with whom he fell in love while 
they worked together in a plowed field. He was irregular 
in his life, and committed the most serious mistakes in 
conducting his domestic affairs, but at heart he was one of 
the noblest of men. Milton married the daughter of a 



RECREATIONS, PSEUDONYMS, ETC. 169 



country squire, and lived with her but a short time. He 
was an austere literary recluse, while she was a rosy, romp- 
ing country lass, that could not endure the restraint im- 
posed upon her, and so they separated. Subsequently, how- 
ever, she returned, and they lived tolerably happy together, 
varied by occasional separations. Shakespeare loved and 
wedded a farmer's daughter. She was faithful to her vows, 
but it was not so with the bard himself. Like most of the 
great poets, he showed too little discrimination in bestow- 
ing his affections on the other sex. Addison's married life 
was as unhappy in its sequence as the union had been bril- 
liant in its promise. Dickens was accused of neglect and 
ill-treatment of the mother of his children, who bore her 
sorrows uncomplainingly. 

Bulwer-Lytton married a shrew," who was altogether 
beneath him in social life and intellectual capacity, and 
he paid the penalty of his mistake. Carlyle's wife, who was 
bright and beautiful, with a certain star-light radiance and 
grace, devoted to him her life, which so many other men 
had desired to share, and was a companion, friend and 
helpmate. How he returned the wealth of her love and 
self-sacrifice for him is to be known by a perusal of her 

Letters." ^ 

Their Manner and Conversation. 

Theodore Hook, an incorrigible wag and jester, had all 
imaginable assurance in playing those funny pranks upon 
people for which he was so celebrated ; but on one occasion 
he was to take part in some amateur theatricals, and it was 
generally surprising to see so bold a gentleman, when he 
made his appearance, utterly paralyzed with fright and un- 
able to utter a word or move a limb. 

Byron, too, was shy, on first acquaintance, even to awk- 
wardness. It is said that neither Pope nor Dryden was 
brilliant in conversation, — the one being too saturnine and 



* " Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle," prepared for publi- 
cation by Thomas Carlyle, Edited by James Anthony Froude. 

15 



170 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



reserved," and the other too much a friend of the author of 
the Essay on Man. Neither Addison nor Cowper shone in 
society, though the former could talk charmingly to one or 
two friends, but was shy and absent before strangers. To 
use his own happy metaphor, he could draw bills for a thou- 
sand pounds, though he had not a guinea in his pocket. 

Hume's writings were so superior to his conversation, 
that Horace Walpole used to say that he understood noth- 
ing till he had w^ritten upon it. Goldsmith was a blun- 
dering converser, and showed hardly a spark of the genius 
that blazes through his writings. Occasionally he blurted 
out a good thing, as when he applied to Johnson's sayings, 
in one of Gibber's plays : " There is no arguing with 
Johnson, for when his pistol misses fire, he knocks down 
his adversary with the butt end of it." 

The witty Charles II., who was so charmed with the 
humor of Hudibras, that he caused himself to be introduced 
privately to the author, found Butler an intolerably dull 
companion. He was confident that so stupid a fellow never 
^ wrote a book. The Earl of Dorset, who sought an inter- 
view with the great satirist, was similarly disappointed. 
Taking three bottles of wine with him, he found the poet 
dull and heavy after the first had been drained, somewhat 
sparkling after the second bottle, and after the third, more 
stupid and muzzy than ever. Your friend," said the earl, 
after he had left with his introducer, " is like a nine-pin — 
small at both ends and great in the middle." 

Their Stature. 

Swift, who was a tall and muscular man, is a Avitness that 
the keenest w^it is not confined to a small bodily lodging. 
Both Dry den and Pope were little men. Rochester nick- 
named the former " Poet Squab," and Tom Brown always 
called him " Little Rayes." Pope was almost a dwarf ; his 
consciousness of his mean appearance made him the more 
laborious in the cultivation of his talents, according to 
Shenstone. He was more sensitive and petulant than the 



RECREATIONS, PSEUDONYMS, ETC. 171 



first poet of the children, Dr. Watts, who was also afflicted, 
like Pope, with a littleness of body and with life-long sick- 
ness. It is related that when the hymn-writer was one 
day sitting in a coffee-house he heard a gentleman say in 
a low tone, That 's the great Dr. Watts ; " while another 
exclaimed, " What a little fellow ! " Turning to the two 
speakers, he repeated, with good-humored seriousness, 
one of his own verses. It has been called by some who 
have told the anecdote, an impromptu : 

" Were I so tall to reach the pole, 
Or mete the ocean with my span, 
I mnst be measured by my soul ; 

The mind 's the stature of the man." 

Their Graves. 

Of those who have adorned the literature of our lan- 
guage, Chaucer, Spenser, Beaumont, Drayton, Cowley, Den- 
ham, Dryden, Addison, Prior, Congreve, Guy, Johnson, 
Sheridan, and Campbell lie in Westminster Abbey. Mil- 
ton was buried in the churchyard of St. Giles, Cripplegate ; 
Pope, in the church at Twickenham ; Swift, in St. Patrick's, 
Dublin; Thompson, in the churchyard at Eichmond, in 
Surrey ; Gray, in the churchyard at Stoke-Pogis, the scene 
of the ''Elegy ;" Goldsmith, in the churchyard of the Tem- 
ple church ; Cowper, in the church at Dereham ; Burns, in 
St. Michael's churchyard, Dumfries ; Byron, in the church 
of Hucknall, near Newstead Abbey ; Coleridge, in the 
church at Highgate ; Sir Walter Scott, in Dryburgh Abbey ; 
Southey, in Crosthwaite church, near Keswick. Carlyle 
is buried in the Old Haddington Cathedral. Jane Austen 
is buried in Winchester Cathedral. Webster is buried 
in "an ancient burying-ground " overlooking the sea, 
near Marshfield, where he lived. Baj^ard Taylor lies at 
Longwood, a little cemetery within sight of his birth- 
place at Kennet Square. Franklin's grave and the tomb- 
stone covering his and his wife's remains, may be seen 
from the sidewalk through an iron fence panel in the wall 
of the graveyard of Christ church, in Philadelphia. Joseph 



172 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE, 



Kodman Drake's remains lie in a private graveyard of the 
Hunt family, on Long Island Sound, near New York. Fran- 
cis Scott Key is buried in Mount Olivet cemetery, at Fred- 
erick, Md. James Gates Percival is buried at Hazel Green, 
Mich. The tomb of Wilson, the ornithologist, is in the 
churchyard of the old Wacaco Swede's church at Philadel- 
phia. Hannah Adams lies buried in Mount Auburn cem- 
etery, Cambridge, Mass., and her monument was the first 
erected within the grounds. Here also are the graves of 
Spurzheim, the celebrated phrenologist. Dr. Nathaniel Bow- 
ditch, T. C. Haliburton, N. P. Willis, Jared Sparks, Jos. Story, 
H. W. Longfellow, Agassiz, Everett, Pierpont, Frances 
Sargent Osgood, Choate, Channing, and Longfellow's wife ; 
and on Pyrola Path may be seen a beautiful tablet erected 
to the memory of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 

LONGFELLOW'S RESIDENCE. 

Few private houses in the United States are so well known 
as the residence of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, at Cam- 
bridge, Mass., so often has it been described by affectionate 
antiquarians and enthusiastic pilgrims. It is not only the 
home of our most celebrated poet, but it also surpasses in 
historic interest any building in New England, with the 
sole exception of Faneuil Hall. Its age, as compared with 
that of other Cambridge houses, is not great. It was built 
in 1759, by Colonel John Vassall, a firm loyalist, who fled 
to England in 1775, his property in Cambridge and Boston 
having been confiscated. Its next occupant was Colonel 
John Glover, a bold little Marblehead soldier, who quar- 
tered some of his troops in the spacious structure. When 
Washington rode into Cambridge, on Sunday, July 2, 1775, 
he was greatly pleased with the appearance of the house, 
and, having had it cleaned, he established himself therein 
during the same month. Martha Washington arrived at 
the house in December, and Washington remained in it 
until April of the following year. The south-east room on 
the first floor Washington took for his study, in which the 



RECREATIONS, PSEUDONYMS, ETC. 173 



councils of war were all held during the stay of the com- 
mander-in-chief at Cambridge. He slept just overhead, 
always retiring at nine o'clock. The spacious room behind 
the study, which Longfellow used for a library, was occu- 
pied by Washington's military family, as a rule a pretty 
large one. A General's " military family," in English par- 
lance, comprised his whole staff. Washington was not 
averse to a certain amount of official splendor, and was, 
luckily, rich enough to carry out his whim in the matter 
of making his assistants a part of his ordinary household. 
Trumbull, the artist, complained, rather sarcastically, that 
he, for one, could not keep his head up in the magnifi.cent 
society of the house. " I now found myself," he averred, 
^4n the family of one of the most distinguished men of the 
age, surrounded at his table by the principal officers of the 
army, and in constant intercourse with them. It was fur- 
ther my duty to receive company and do the honors of the 
house to many of the first people of the country." But 
Washington was thrifty and frugal personally, and his 
general maintenance, at his own cost, of a sort of court, 
was of great service to the colonial cause. 

The owners of the house, after the Revolution, were 
Nathaniel Tracy (whom Washington visited for an hour in 
1789), Thomas Russell, and Dr. Andrew Craigie. Talley- 
rand and Lafayette slept in it, and in 1833 Jared Sparks 
commenced to keep house within its historic rooms. Ev- 
erett, and Worcester, the lexicographer, also occupied it for 
a time, and Mr. Longfellow took up his abode in it in 1837. 
At first he merely rented a room, establishing himself in 
Washington's south-east bed-chamber. Here he wrote 
" Hyperion " and " Voices of the Night." In the dwelling, 
in one room and another, almost all his books, save the 
two which date from his Bowdoin professorship, have been 
produced. He had not long been an occupant of the house 
before he bought it. Its timbers are perfectly sound. The 
lawn in front is neatly kept, and across the street there 
stretches a green meadow as far as the banks of the Charles, 
bought by the poet to preserve his view. And all Cam- 
15^ 



174 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



bridge, down to coal-heavers and hod-carriers, revered him 
for his benignity, and remembers him not only as a poet, 
but as a kind and gentle man. 

Song Writers. 

"Foster was a wonder," says a well-known music com- 
poser. "He was as well known, through his songs, to 
Americans as Dickens was, through his stories, to the 
English, but was known to very, very few personally. Of 
his song, Old Dog Tray, 125,000 copies were sold in the first 
eighteen months after its publication. His Old Folks at 
Home was the best thing he ever wrote, and 400,000 were 
sold by the publishers that first issued the song, Foster 
receiving $15,000 as his share of this sale. He wrote 
many negro melodies that proved famous, and, commencing 
with Camptown Races, he went steadily on until he wrote 
some very fine pathetic songs. A Mr. Christy paid him 
$400 for the privilege of having his (Christy's) name 
printed on one edition of Old Folks at Home. That caused 
the error to get afloat that Christy wrote this song." 

Annie Laurie. 

Almost every one is familiar with the sweet song of "An- 
nie Laurie," though it may not be generally known that 
the fair-faced maiden was not a creature of imagination, 
but an actual verity, of whose ancestry honorable mention 
is made in Scottish history. 

Stephen Laurie was a flourishing Dumfries merchant be- 
fore James VI. became king. Prior to 1611, he married 
Marion, daughter of Provost Coran — getting with her a 
handsome marriage portion. His wealth enabled him to 
purchase of Sir Robert Gordon of Lochinvar, Bitebought, 
Shall Castle and Maxwelton, whose " braes are bonnie." 
Stephen Laurie, then a man of many acres, took the desig- 
nation of Maxwelton, leaving, at his death, his lands and 
titles to his eldest son, John. 

The next head of the house was Robert, a baronet. He 



RECREATIONS, PSEUDONYMS, ETC. 175 



was twice married, and had, by his second wife, three sons 
and four daughters. The birth of one of the latter is thus 
entered in the family register by her father : At the pleas- 
ure of Almighty God, my daughter, Annie Laurie, was born 
upon the 16th day of December, 1682, about six o'clock in 
the morning, and was baptized by Mr. Geo. Hunter" (min- 
ister of Glencairn). 

This minute is worth quoting, as the little stranger, whose 
entry into life it announces, grew to be the most beautiful 
Dumfriesian lady of the day, and the heroine of a song 
which has rendered her charms immortal : — 

" Her brow is like the snowdrift, 

Her throat is like the swan, 
Her face it is the fairest 

That e'er the sun shone on — 
That e'er the sun shone on, 

And dark blue is her eye, 
And for bonnie Annie Laurie 

I 'd lay me down and die." 

The well-known lyric, of which these lines form a part, 
was composed by Mr. Douglas Finland, an ardent admirer 
of bonnie Annie," who did not, however, return his affec- 
tion, but married his rival, Alexander Furgusson. 

Nursery Rhymes. 

" Sing a Song of Sixpence " is as old as the sixteenth 
century. " Three Blind Mice " is found in a music-book 
dated 1609. " The Frog and the Mouse " was licensed in 
1580. Three Children Sliding on the Ice " dates from 
1539. " London Bridge is Broken Down " is of unfathom- 
able antiquity. "Boys and Girls Come Out to Play" is 
certainly as old as the reign of Charles IL, as is also " Lucy 
Locket Lost Her Pocket " to the tune of which the song of 
"Yankee Doodle" was written. "Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, 
Where Have You Been ? " is of the age of Queen Bess. 
" Little Jack Horner " is older than the seventeenth cen- 
tury. "The Old Woman Tossed in a Blanket'' is of the 
reign of James IL, to which monarch it is supposed to 
allude. 



176 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Mother Shipton's Prophecy. 

*' Carriages without horses shall go, 
And accidents fill the world with woe. 
Around the world thoughts shall fly, 
In the twinkling of an eye. 
Water shall yet more wonders do, 
Very strange, yet shall be true. 
The world upside down shall be, 
And coin be found at roots of tree. 
Through hills men shall ride, 
And no horse or ass shall be at his side. 
Under water men shall walk. 
Shall ride, shall sleep, shall talk. 
In the air men shall be seen 
In white, in black, in green. 
Iron in the water shall float 
As easy as an wooden boat. 
Gold shall be found, and found 
In a land that 's now not known. 
Fire and water shall wonders do, 
England at last shall admit a Jew. 
The world to an end shall come 
In eighteen hundred and eighty-one." 

It is claimed that this was written and published first in 
1488, and republished in 1641, and that it is the more won- 
derful, as all the predictions, with the exception of the last, 
have been verified. Whether such a woman ever lived, is 
not known ; but the prophecy is a clever hoax, and is the 
product of the brain of Charles Hindley, of Brighton, 
England, who, about the year 1862, published w^hat pre- 
tended to be a reissue of an old work, containing, among 
other articles by Mother Shipton," this w^onderful docu- 
ment. 

Mosaic Poetry. 

I only knew she came and went Lowell. 

Like troutlets in a pool ; Hood. 

She was a phantom of delight, Wordsworth. 

And I was like a fool. Eastman. 

" One kiss, dear maid," I said and sighed, Coleridge. 

Out of those lips unshorn. Longfellow. 

She shook her ringlets round her head, Stoddard. 

And laughed in merry scorn. Tennyson. 



RECREATIONS, PSEUDONYMS, ETC, 177 



Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky ! 

You hear them, oh my heart ? 
'T is twelve at night by the castle clock, 

Beloved, we must part ! 
' Come back ! come back !" she cried in g 

My eyes are dim with tears — 
How shall I live through all the days, 

All through a hundred years ? 
'T was in the prime of summer time, 

She blessed me with her hand ; 
We strayed together, deeply blest, 

Into the Dreaming Land. 
The laughing bridal roses blow. 

To dress her dark brown hair ; 
No maiden may with her compare, 

Most beautiful, most rare! 
I clasped it on her sweet, cold hand. 

The precious golden link ; 
I calmed her fears, and she was calm, 

" Drink, pretty creature, drink ! " 
And so I won my Genevieve, 

And walked in Paradise ; 
The fairest thing that ever grew 

Atween me and the skies. 

Acrostics. 



rief, 



Tennyson. 
Alice Cary. 

Coleridge. 
Alice Gary. 
Campbell. 
Bayard Taylor. 
Mrs. Osgood. 
T. 8. Perry. 
Hood. 
Hoyt 
Mrs. Edwards. 
Cornwall. 

Patmore. 
Bayard Taylor. 
Brailsford; 

Read. 
Browning. 

Smith. 
Coleridge. 
Wordsworth. 
Coleridge. 
Hervey. 
Wordsworth. 
Osgood. 



Longfellow. 

" Lays like thine have many a charm ; 

ft thy themes the heart must warm. 

Now o'er Slavery's guilt and woes, 

Grief and shame's deep hues it throws ; 

F ar up Alpine heights is heard 
* Excelsior,' now the stirring word ; 
' Life's Psalm,' now onward is inviting, 

Longings for nobler deeds exciting; 

'er Britain now resounds thy name, 

While States unborn shall swell thy fame." 

Irving. 

' In easy, natural, graceful charm of style, 
Resembling Goldy's ' Vicar,' — free from guile : 
Vein of rich humor through thy ' Sketch-Book' flows, 
Imagination her bright colors shows. 
No equal hast thou 'mongst thy brother band, 
Genial thy soul, worthy our own loved land." 
M 



178 



SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Pseudonyms. 

Abel Shufflebottom Robert Southey. 

Acton Bell Anne Bronte. 

Ada Vernon Susan Dickinson. 

^sop Lillie Devereux Blake. 

Agate Whitelaw Reid. 

A Layman Sir Walter Scott. 

Alcibiades (Punch) Alfred Tennyson. 

A. L. 0. E. {A Lady of England) . . Charlotte Tucker. 
A Minute Philosopher .... Charles Kingsley. 

An American J. Fenimore Cooper. 

Andrew Jack Downing Seba Smith. 

A Rebel George Cary Eggleston, 

Artemus Ward Charles Farrar Browne. 

Astrophel . . . . . . .Sir Philip Sidney. 

Aunt Patty Caroline Lee Hentz. 

A Yankee Richard Grant White. 

Babbington White . . . . . . Miss Bradden. 

Barabbas Whitefeather .... Douglas Jerrold. 

Barry Gray Robert Barry Coffin. 

Bibliophile S. Austin Allibone. 

Brick Pomeroy Mark M. Pomeroy. 

Caleb Burt Cecil Burleigh. 

Captain Rock . . . . . . . Thomas Moore. 

Carl Benson Charles Astor Bristed. 

C. Effingham, Esq John Esten Cooke. 

C. E. Sheridan Hon. Mrs. C. E. Norton. 

Charles J. de la Blanche, Esq W. M. Thackeray. 

Christopher Crowfield . . . Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

Cid Hamet T. B. Macaulay. 

Clara Balfour Mrs. Heraans. 

Clio (by initials in Spectator) . . . Joseph Addison. 
Col. Frederick Ingham . . . Edward Everett Hale. 
Cornelius O'Dowd .... Charles James Lever. 
Croaker Joseph Rodman Drake. 



RECREATIONS, PSEUDONYMS, ETC. 179 



Croaker & Co Fitz-Greene Halleck. 

Currier Bell . . Mrs. A. B. Kichols, nee Charlotte Bronte. 

Danbury News Man James M. Bailey. 

A (Delta, 1837) Benjamin Disraeli. 

Doesticks (Q. K. Philander) . . Mortimer M. Thompson. 

Don John Jean Ingelow. 

Driftwood H. W. Longfellow. 

Duchatelet Thomas Paine. 

Easy Chair [Harpers] . . . George William Curtis. 
Echo Club [Atlantic Monthly) .... Bayard Taylor. 

Edmund Kirke James R. Gilmore. 

Eli Perkins Melville D. Landon. 

Ellen Louise (Harpers) . . . Mrs. William V. Moulton, 

nee Ellen Louise Chandler. 

Ellis Bell Emily Jane Bronte. 

Ethel Lynn Mrs. Ethel Lynn Beers. 

Ettrick Shepherd James Hogg. 

Fanny Fern Mrs. Farrington ; then Mrs. Eldridge ; then Mrs. 

James Par ton, nee Sarah Pay son Willis. 
Fanny Forrester .... Mrs. Adoniram Judson, 

nee Emily C. Chubbuck. 

Fat Contributor A. Miner Griswold. 

Florence . . Mrs. S. S. Osgood, nee Frances Sargent Locke. 
Florence Percy . . Mrs. B. P. Akers, nee Elizabeth A. Allen. 
Francis Herbert .... William Cullen Bryant. 

Gail Hamilton Mary Abigail Dodge. 

Galaxy Club .... Mark Twain and Don Piatt. 
Gath [also Laertes) .... George Alfred Townsend. 
Grace Greenwood .... Mrs. L, K. Lippincott, 

nee Sara Jane Clarke. 

Graduate of Oxford John Ruskin. 

Hans Breitman Charles Godfrey Leland. 

Herr Teufelsdrockh Thomas Carlyle. 

Hesba Stratton Sarah Hamen Smith. 

Horace Hornem Lord Byron. 

Hosea Biglow James Russell Lowell. 

Howard Glyndon . . . . Mrs. Edward W. Searing, 

nee Laura C. Redden. 



180 SHORT STUDIES IN LITERATURE. 



Ik Marvel . . 
Isaac Tompkins, Gent. 
Jennie June 
John de Bergham 
John Donkey . 
John Search 
Josh Billings 
Jugg, M. T. . 
Junius 

[These celebrated letters 
were published in the Public 
Advertiser horn September 21, 
1769, to January 21, 1772. 
Of the forty-one persons to 
whom their authorship has 
been attributed, the twelve 
names appended have attract- 
ed most attention, though it is 
generally believed that Francis 
was the author.] 
Margaret Nicholson . 
Marginalia 
Marion Harland 

Max Adeler 
Max Mannering 
Miles O'Reilly . 
Minnie Myrtle . Mrs. Joaq 
Mother Goose . 
M. Quad [Detroit Free Press) 
Mrs. Horace Manners 
Mrs. Partington 
N. A. Oudenarde 
Nomad .... 
Nora, or Norma 



Old Burchell 
Old Grimes 



Donald Grant Mitchell. 

Lord Brougham. 
. Mrs. Jennie C. Croly. 

Thomas Chatterton. 
Thomas Dunn English. 
Richard Whately. 
Henry W. Shaw. 
. Joe Howard, Jr. 
Henry Sampson Woodfall. 
Sir Philip Francis. 
George Sackville. 
Thomas Paine. 
William Pitt. 
Edmund Burke. 
James Adair. 
John Wilkes. 
Charles Lee. 
William G. Hamilton. 
Charles Lloyd- 
Hugh Macauley Boyd. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley. 

Edgar Allan Poe. 
. Mrs. E. P. Terhune, 
nee Marion Virginia Hawes. 
. Charles Heber Clark. 
Josiah Gilbert Holland. 
. Charles Graham Halpine. 
uin Miller, nee Anna L. Johnson. 
Mrs. Goose, nee Elizabeth Foster. 

Charles B. Lewis. 
Algernon Charles Swinburne. 

Ben P. Shillaber. 
. James K. Paulding. 
Gen. George A. Custer. 
Mrs. James Gordon Brooks, 
nee Elizabeth Aiken. 
Elihu Burritt. 
Albert Gorton Greene. 



RECREATIONS, PSEUDONYMS, ETC. 181 



Oliver Optic 
Orpheus C. Kerr 
Ouida 

Owen Meredith 
Paul Creyton . 
Paul Slingsby . 
Peter Plymley . 
Petroleum V. Nasby 
Samuel Slick 
Satiricus Sculptor 
Slingsby Lawrence 
• Stonemason 
Strauss, Jr. 
Trusta 

Uncle Remus 
Waterdale Neighbors 
William Wastle 
Yawcob Strauss 
Z. . . . 



Zeta , 



William T. Adams. 
Bobert Henry Newell, 
Louise de la Rame. 
Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton. 
John Townsend Trowbridge. 
Nathaniel Parker Willis. 

Sydney Smith. 
David Rosse Locke. 
Thomas Chandler Haliburton. 
William Henry Ireland. 
. George Henry Lewes. 

Hugh Miller. 
.Kate Field. 
Mrs. Austin Phelps, nee Elizabeth Stuart. 

. Joel Chandler Harris. 

Justin McCarthy. 
John Gibson Lockhart. 
Charles Follen Adams. 
Hannah More. 
James Anthony Froude. 



Note. — This list might be continued indefinitely, as more than 15,000 
"noms de plume" are published, and the collection is daily being 
increased by new travelers in the pathway of authorship. Many of the 
leading writers have had, at various times, different signatures; and 
the same title is used to designate different authors — the assumed name 
of A Layman having been used by no less than twenty-seven. 
16 



Adams, Mrs. Hannah, 84. 
Addison, Joseph, 29. 
Ag-assiz, Louis J. R., 105. 
Alcott, Miss Louise M., 123. 
Aldrich, T. B., 112. 
Alison, Sir Archibald, 71. 
Allibone, S. Austin, 107. 
Allston, Washington, 95. 
Arthur, T. S., 108. 
Ascliam, Roger, 19. 
Audubon, J. J., 81. 
Austen, Jane, 52. 

Bacon, Sir Francis, 17. 
Baillie, Joanna, 51. 
Bancroft, George, 103. 
Barbauld, Mrs. Anna Letitia, 54. 
Barbour, John, 14. 
Barlow, Joel, 83. 
Barring-ton, George, 38. 
Bartram, John, 83. 

William, 83. 

Beaumont and Fletcher, 19. 
Beattie, James, 38. 
Beecher, H, W., 105. 
Benton, Thomas H., 105. 
Blair, Hugh, 40. 
Blessington, Countess of, 52. 
Boker, George H., 120. 
Boswell, James, 34. 
Boudinot, Elias, 83. 
Bradford, (iov., 77. 
Bradstreet, Mrs. Anne, 77. 
Brine, Mary D., 123. 
Bronte, Charlotte, 69. 



Brooks, Mrs. Maria, 96. 
Brougham, Lord Henry, 55. 
Brown, Charles B., 81. 
Browne, Sir Thomas, 24. 
Browning, Robert, 57. 

Mrs. E. B., 58. 

Bryant, W. C, 86. 
Brydges, Sir Egerton, 55. 
Bulwer-Lytton, Sir E. G., 63. 
Bunyan, John, 22. 
Burdette, Robert J., 119. 
Burke, Edmund, 39. 
Burns, Robert, 37. 
Burritt, Elihu, 124. 
Burton, Robert, 22. 
Butler, Samuel, 26. 
Byron, Lord, 41. 

Campbell, Thomas, 49. 
Carleton, Will, 116. 
Carlyle, Thomas, 62. 
Cary, Alice, 110. 

PhcEbe, 110, 111. 

Caxton, William, 13. 
Chalmers, George, 54. 
Clianning, Wm. E., 81. 
Chatterton, Thomas, 39. 
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 12. 
Child, Mrs. L. M., 107. 
Church, Capt. Benj., 77. 
Cibber, Collcy, 33. 
Clemens, S. L., 119. 
Clough, A. H., 60. 
Coleridge, S. T., 45. 
Collins, William, 32. 

182 



INDEX. 



Collins, Wilkie, 69. 
Colman, George, 38. 
Conrad, Robert T., 106. 
Cooke, John Esten, 121. 

Philip P., 121. 

Cooper, J. Fenimore, 99. 
Cotton, Rev. John, 76. 
Coverdale, Miles, 13. 
Cowley, Abraham, 23. 
Cowper, William, 36. 
Cozzens, Frederick S., 106. 
Crabbe, Rev. George, 51. 
Craik, Mrs. Dinah Mulock, 69. 
Crashaw, Richard, 23. 
Crouch, F. N., 124. 
Cunningham, Allan, 49. 
Curtis, George W., 122. 

Dalrymple, David, 39. 
Dana, R. H., 95. 
Daniel, Samuel, 19. 
D'Arblay, Countess, 52. 
Darwin, Charles, 67. 
Defoe, Daniel, 33. 
Denham, Sir John, 23. 
De Quincey, Thomas, 56. 
Dickens, Charles, 64. 
Dickinson, John, 83. 
Dimitry, Charles, 121. 
Dinsmoor, Robert, 83. 
Disraeli, Benj., Earl of Beacons- 
field, 68. 
Isaac, 54. 

D'Ossoli, Margaret Fuller, 97. 
Drake, Jos. Rodman, 85. 
Drayton, Michael, 19. 
Dry den, John, 25. 
Dunbar, William, 14. 
Dunlap, AVilliam, 84. 
Duyckinck Brothers, 107. 
Dwight, Dr. Timothy, 80. 

Edge worth, Maria, 52. 
Edwards, Rev. Jonathan, 78. 
Eggleston, Edward, 122. 
Eliot, George, 65. 
Emerson, R. W., 101. 
Everett, Edward, 105. 

Falconer, William, 40. 



Farquhar, George, 32. 
Fielding, Henry, 39. 
Fletcher, Beaumont and, 19. 
Folger, Peter, 78. 
Ford, John, 20. 
Francis, Sir Philip, 40. 
Franklin, Benj., 78. 
Freneau, Philip, 81. 
Froude, Jas. Anthony, 71. 

Gait, John, 53. 
Gascoigne, Geo., 19. 
Gay, John, 32. 
Gibbon, Edward, 39. 
Gilmore, James R., 122. 
Godwin, William, 53. 
Goldsmith, Oliver, 35. 
Gower, John, 13. 
Gray, Thomas, 36. 
Griffin, Gerald, 70. 
Griswold, Rufus W., 106. 
Grote, George, 71. 

Hale, Rev. Ed. Everett, 121. 
Hallam, Henry, 53. 
Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 86. 
Harris, Joel C, 121. 
Harte, F. Bret, 114. 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 100. 
Hazlitt, William, 55. 
Hay, Col. John, 117. 
Hayne, Paul H., 118. 
Heber, Bishop, 51. 
Hemans, Mrs. Felicia, 51. 
Henry, the Minstrel, 14. 
Henryson, Robert, 14. 
Hentz, Caroline Lee, 107. 
Herbert, George, 24. 
Herrick, Robert, 23. 
Hervey, James, 33. 
Higginson, Thos. W., 123. 
Hildreth, Richard, 107. 
Hill, Aaron, 31. 
Hoffman, C. F., 85. 
Holland, Dr. J. G., 102. 
Holmes, O. W., 91. 
Hood, Thomas, 48. 
Hook, Theodore, 52. 
Hooke, Nathaniel, 32. 
Hooker, Richard, 20. 



184 



INDEX. 



Hope, Jas. Barron, 120. 
Hopkinson, Francis, 82. 
Joseph, 82. 

Howard, Henry, Earl of Surrey, 13. 

Howells, W. D., 118. 

Hughes, Thomas, 72. 

Hume, David, 39. 

Hunt, Leigh, 50. 

Huxley, Thos. H., 72. 

Ingelow, Jean, 58. 
Ireland, Wm. Henry, 39. 
Irving, Washington, 97. 

James I., of Scotland, 14. 
James, G. P. R., 71. 

Jr., Henry, 123. 

Jefferson, Thomas, 79. 
Jeffrey, Lord Francis, 55. 
Johnson, Samuel, 34. 
Jones, John B., 106. 
Jonson, Ben, 18. 
Junius, 40. 

..Kane, Dr. Elisha Kent, 107. 
Keats, John, 44. 
Keble, John, 51. 
Kellogg, Rev. Elijah, 124. 
Kennedy, John P., 105. 
Kent, Judge, 81. 
Key, Francis Scott, 95. 
Kingsley, Charles, 68. 
Kinney, Coates, 96. 
Knowles, Jas. Sheridan, 49. 

L.aing, Malcolm, 54. 
L.amb, Charles, 45. 
Landon, Letitia E., 52. 
Landor, Walter Savage, 54. 
Langland, William, 13. 
liCe, Henry, 81. 
Lever, Charles, 69. 
I.ewes, George H., 66. 
I.ewis, Matthew G., 53. 
Lingard, John, 53. 
Literature, English, 11. Ameri- 
can, 74. 
Locke, John, 28. 
Longfellow, H. W., 87. 
Lossing, B. J., 107. 



Lovelace, Sir Richard, 23. 
Lover, Samuel, 70. 
Lowell, J. R., 92. 
Lyell, Sir Charles, 71. 
Lytton, Lord E. R. Bulwer, 67. 

Macaulay, T. B., 60. 
Macpherson, James, 38, 
Mandeville, Sir John, 12. 
Mann, Horace, 107. 
Marlowe, Christopher, 19. 
Marryat, Capt., 53. 
Marshall, Chief Justice, 81. 
Massey, Gerald, 68. 
Massinger, Philip, 20. 
Mather, Cotton, 76. 
Merivale, Rev. Charles, 71. 
Mill, James, 53. 
Miller, Hugh, 69. 

Joaquin (C. H.), 115. 

Milman, Henry Hart, 71. 
Milnes, Richard M., 70. 
Milton, John, 21. 
Mitchell, D. G., 122. 
Mitford, Miss Mary R., 52. 
Montagu, Lady Mary, 33. 
Montgomery, James, 50. 
Moore, Clement C, 95. 

Thomas, 42. 

More, Hannah, 40. 

Sir Thomas, 13. 

Morford, Henry, 122. 
Morris, G. P., 96. 

William, 60. 

Morton, Thomas, 51. 
Motherwell, William, 51. 
Motley, John Lathrop, 104. 
Miiller, Max, 72. 
Murray, Lindley, 81. 

Napier, Sir William, 53. 
Neal, John, 106. 
Newman, J. H., 72. 
Norris, John, 27. 
Norton, Mrs. C. E. S., 68. 

Oliphant, Mrs., 70. 
Otis, James, 79. 

Paine, Robert Treat, 83. 



INDEX. 



185 



Paine, Thomas, 80. 
Parkman, Francis, 123. 
Parnell, Thomas, 32. 
Parton, James, 123. 

Mrs. Jas., 123. 

Paulding, Jas. Kirke, 105. 
Payne, John Howard. 94. 
Pepys, Samuel. 28. 
Percival, J. G., 96. 
Percy, Thomas, 40. 
Pierpont, John, 96. 
Pike, Albert, 96. 
Pinkerton, John, 53. 
Poe, Edgar Allan, 93. 
Pollok, Robert, 51. 
Pope, Alexander, 30. 
Porson, Richard, 54. 
Prescott, W. H., 104. 
Prior, Matthew, 32. 
Procter, Adelaide A., 68. 
B. W., 50. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 20. 
Rame, Louise de la, 70. 
Ramsay, Dr. David, 81. 
Read, T. B., 109. 
Reade, Charles, 69. 
Richardson, Samuel, 39. 
Robertson, William, 39. 
Rogers, Samuel, 50. 
Rowson, Mrs. Susanna, 83. 
Ruskin, John, 66. 
Ryan, Father A. J., 121. 

Sackville, Thomas, 19 
Saxe, J. G., 103. 
Scott, Sir Walter, 47. 
Scudder, Horace E., 123. 
Selden, Dr. Samuel, 121. 
Sewall, Jonathan, 83. 
Shakespeare, William, 16. 
Shelley, P. B., 43. 
Shen stone, William, 38. 
Sheridan, R. B., 40. 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 20. 
Sigourney, Lydia H., 106. 
Simms, W. Gilmore, 96. 
Skelton, John, 13. 
Smith, Capt. John, 75. 
James and Horace, 52 

16^ 



Smith, Richard P., 106. 

Sydney, 54. 

Smollett, Tobias G., 39. 
Southerne, Thomas, 27. 
Southey, Robert, 45. 
Southwell, Robert, 19. 
Sparks, Jared, 107. 
Spencer, Herbert, 72. 
Spenser, Edmund, 15. 
Spoffbrd, Harriet P., 120. 
Sprague, Charles, 95. 
Spurgeon, C. H., 72. 
St. John, Henry, 33. 
Stanley, Dean, 72. 
Stedman, E. C, 113. 
Steele, Sir Richard, 33. 
Sterne, Lawrence, 39. 
Stith, William, 77. 
Stoddard, R. H., 120. 
Story, Judge, 105. 
Stowe, Mrs. H. B., 103. 
Street, Alfred B., 96. 
Strickland, Miss Agnes, 70. 
Strother, Gen. D. H., 106. 
Suckling, Sir John, 24. 
Swift, Jonathan, 31. 
Swinburne, A. C, 59. 

Taylor, Bayard, 111. 
Tennyson, Alfred, 56. 
Thackeray, W. M., 64. 
Thirl wall, Connop, 71. 
Thompson, Daniel P., 106. 
Thoreau, Henry D., 105. 
Ticknor, George, 104. 
Trench, R. C, 71. 
Trollope, Anthony, 68. 

Mrs. Frances, 52. 

Trowbridge, J. T., 122. 
Trumbull, John, 83. 
Tupper, Martin F., 72. 
Turner, Sharon, 54. 
Tusser, Thomas, 20. 
Tyndale, William, 13. 
Tyndall, John, 72. 

Walpole, Horace, 40, 
Walton, Izaak, 24. 
Ward, Nathaniel, 77. 
R. Plumer, 53. 



186 



INDEX. 



Warner, Chas. Dudley, 121. 
AVarren, Samuel, 70. 
Webster, Daniel, 105. 
AVhately, Richard, 72. 
Whipple, Edwin P., 105. 
AVhitaker, Mrs. F. M. (Berry), 107. 
AVliite, Henry Kirke, 51. 

Richard Grant, 122. 

AVhitman, Walt, 120. 
AVliittier, Elizabeth H., 97. 
J. G., 89. 

Wigglesworth, Michael, 78. 
W^illiams, Roger, 76. 



Willis, N. P., 94. 
Wilson, Alexander, 81 
Winslow, Gov., 77. 
Wirt, William, 104. 
Wither, George, 24. 
Witherspoon, John, 80. 
Wolfe, Rev. Charles, 50. 
Woodworth, Samuel, 95. 
Wordsworth, William, 46 
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 13. 
WycUffe, John, 13. 

Young, Edward, 38. 



The 




Em 



4i * 




MODEL TEXT-BOOKS 

FOR 

^thoob, ^m&zmm, and ^olleges* 

OO^O^ 

CHASE & STUART'S CLASSICAL SERIES. 

COMPRISING 

First Tear in Latin, 
A Latin Grammar, 
A Latin Reader, 

Caesar's Commentaries, 

First Six Books of Aeneid, 
Horace's Odes, Satires, and Epistles. 
Horace, Selections from. With Lexicon. 
Cicero de Senectute, et de Amicitia, 
Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics, 
Sallust's Catiline et Jugurtha, 
Cicero's Select Orations, 
Cornelius Nepos, Cicero de Officiis, 
Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, 
Cicero de Oratore, Juvenal, 
Terence, Tacitus, 
Ovid, Pliny, Livy, 
Cicero's Select Letters. 



Easy Lessons in Natural Philosophy. 

For cliildreu. By Edwin J. Houston, Ph. D. 

Intermediate Lessons in Natural Philosophy. 

By Edwin J. Houston, Ph. D. 

Elements of Natural Philosophy. 

New and Eevised Edition. By Edwin J. Houston, Ph. D. 

This book is designed for use in Graded Schools, High 
Schools, Academies, Seminaries, Normal Schools, etc. It 
gives the elements of the science in a concise form and in 
logical sequence, so that the book forms a system of Natural 
Philosophy, and not a mere collection of disconnected 
facts. It is fully " up to the times " in every respect, and 
gives full descriptions of the most important discoveries 
made in Physical Science. The Electric Light, the Tele- 
phone, the Microphone, the Phonograph, the X-Rays, etc., 
are all described and illustrated. 

Elements of Physical G-eography. New Edition. 
180 pages. By Edwin J. Houston, Ph. D. 

Houston's New Physical Geography is a text-book that 
will gladden the hearts of teachers and pupils. It is con- 
cise, comprehensive, up to the times, and in every respect 
an ideal text-book. 

As a working text-book for class-room use, Houston's 
New Physical Geography stands to-day at the head of the 
list of similar works, and is practically without a peer. 
The frontispiece of the new edition presents a hand- 
somely colored full-page plate of Niagara Falls. 
Hart's Composition and Rhetoric. 
New and Revised Edition. 

For nearly a third of a century the original edition of 
this work was the standard school text-book on the sub- 
ject. There are few schools in the country in which it has 
not been used. Its popularity was wide-spread and lasting, 
and was due to the manifest merit of the book and its re- 
markable adaptation to the practical wants of students. 

The present revision of the book was made by Dr. 
James Morgan Hart, Professor of Rhetoric and English 
Philology in Cornell University, son of the author of the 
original work. The revision was inspired not only by 
the desire to perpetuate the literary life-work of his 
father, who was in his day an acknowledged leader in 



education, but also by the sincerest desire to guide, in 
a friendly spirit, the youth of the present day. 

In its new form, Hart's Composition and Ehetoeic 
is more nearly in aceord with the views and the teach- 
ings of the leading educators of the day, and with the 
spirit of pedagogical progress in this branch of study, 
than any other text-book on the subject. We believe that 
the work will commend itself to every progressive teacher. 

Christian Ethics; or, The Science of the Life 
of Human Duty. 

A New Text-Book on Moral Science. By Rev. D. S. Greg- 
ory, D.D., late President of Lake Forest University. 

Practical Logic ; or, The Art of Thinking. 

By Eev. D. S. Gregory, D. D. 

A Hand-Book of Literature, English and Amer- 
ican. 

A Short Course in Literature, English and Amer- 
ican. 

By E. J. Trimble, late Prof, of Literature State Normal 
School, West Chester, Pa. 

Groesbeck's Practical Book-Keeping Series. 

By Prof. John Groesbeck, late Principal of the Critten- 
den Commercial College. In Two Volumes, viz. : 

College Edition, for Commercial Schools, Colleges, etc. 

School Edition, for Schools and Academies. 

First Lessons in Physiology and Hygiene. 

With special reference to the Effects of Alcohol, Tobacco, 
etc. By Charles K. Mills, M. D. 

An Elementary Algebra, 

A Text-Book for Schools and Academies. By Joseph W. 
Wilson, A. M., late Professor of Mathematics in the Phil- 
adelphia Central High School. 

A Manual of Elocution and Reading. 

Founded on the Philosophy of the Human Voice. By 
Edward Brooks, Ph. D., late Principal of the State Nor- 
mal School, Millersville, Pa. 



The Model Deflner. 

A Book for Beginners, containing Definitions, Etymology, 
and Sentences as Models, exhibiting the correct use of 
Words. By A. C. Webb. 

The Model Etymology. 

Containing Definitions, Etymology, Latin Derivatives, 
Sentences as Models, and Analysis. With a Key con- 
taining the Analysis of every word which could pre- 
sent any diflOLculties to the learner. By A. C. Webb. 

A Manual of Etymology. 

Containing Definitions, Etymology, Latin and Greek 
Derivatives, Sentences as Models, and Analysis. With 
a Key giving the Analysis of all difficult words. By 
A. C. Webb. 

A Course in Civil Government. 

By Francis Newton Thoepe, Professor of Constitu- 
tional History in the University of Pennsylvania. 

If we were asked to name one book that was a fitting 
representative of the modern American text-book, we 
should name Thorpe's Civics.'' 

American Literature. 

A Text-Book for High Schools, Academies, Normal Schools, 
Colleges, etc. By A. H. Smyth, Prof, of Literature, Cen- 
tral High School, Philadelphia. 

The Normal English Grammar. 

By Geo. L. Maris, A. M., Principal of Friends' Central 
High School, Philadelphia. 

Intended for use in Normal Schools, High Schools, 
Academies, and the higher grade of schools generally. 
It is not a book for pupils beginning the study of Eng- 
lish grammar. 

First Lessons in Natural Philosophy. 

For Beginners. By Joseph C. Martindale, M. D. 



Elementary Botany and Spring Flora. 

By W. A. Kellerman, Ph. D., Professor of Botany in 
Ohio State University. 

The Phyto-Theca. 

An adjustable Herbarium Portfolio arranged for fifty 
specimens. By W. A. Kellerman, Ph.D. 

Practical Lessons in Elementary Botany. 

A series of blank forms prepared as an aid to students 
of Botany. By W. A. Kellerman, Ph. D. 

3000 Practice Words. 

By Prof. J. Willis Westlakb, A. M., late of State ISTor- 
mal School, Millersville, Pa. Contains lists of Familiar 
Words often Misspelled, Difficult Words, Homophonous 
Words, Words often Confounded, Eules for Spelling, etc. 

A Hand-Book of Mythology. 

By Miss S. A. Edwards, Teacher of Mythology in the 
Girls' Normal School, Philadelphia. 

The Model Pocket Register and Grade-Book. 

A Eoll-Book, Eecord, and Grade-Book combined. Adapted 
to all Grades of Classes, whether in College, Academy, 
Seminary, High or Primary School. 

The Model School Diary. 

Designed as an aid in securing the co-operation of parents. 
It consists of a Eecord of the Attendance, Deportment, 
Eecitations, etc., of the scholar for every day. At the 
close of the week it is to be sent to the parent or guar- 
dian for his examination and signature. 

The Model Monthly Report. 

Similar to the Model School Diary, excepting that it is 
intended for a Monthly instead of a WeeMy report of the 
Attendance, Eecitations, etc., of the pupil. 



Manuals for Teachers. 

A Series of Hand-books comprising five volumes, which, 
it is believed, will prove a valuable contribution to the Art 
and Science of Teaching. Printed on the best quality of 
calendered paper, and handsomely bound in dove cloth. 

1. On the Cultivation of the Senses. 

2. On the Cultivation of the Memory. 

3. On the Use of Words. 

4. On Discipline. 

5. On Class Teaching". 

Our Bodies. 

By Charles K. Mills, M. D., and A. H. Leuf, M. D. A 
series of five charts for teaching Anatomy, Physiology, 
and Hygiene, and showing the Eflects of Alcohol on the 
Human Body. 

In the School-RL^om ; or, Chapters in the Phi- 
losophy of Education. 

Gives the experience of nearly forty years spent in school- 
room work. By John S. Haet, LL. D. 

We shall he gratified to have teachers correspond with 

us. We offer some of the best of Modern Text-Boohs^ and 

shall he glad at any time to make liberal arrangements 

for their introduction. Please address 

Eldredge & Brother, 

17 North Seventh Street, 

PHILADELPHIA. 



X 

i 



i 



5 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Jan. 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



